


your opinion, which is of no consequence at all

by Fishadee



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bro is an android, Future AU, M/M, Sci-Fi AU, Slow Build, Tags subject to later change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fishadee/pseuds/Fishadee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider: American sweetheart, Hollywood genius, mogul of comedy, satire, and shitty jpeg artifacts, and technologically paranoid asshole.  When his manager finally convinces him to get a pet to help with his undiagnosed mental health issues nobody (least of all Dave himself) expects him to buy an android in a fit of willful defiance and ridiculously laughable irony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everyone that knows you knows that you hate technology. Considering you built your empire on the backs of the movie industry fuckwits and you are the definitive mogul of shitty jpeg artifacts it's a guaranteed shock every time someone figures it out. The public doesn't know. The shareholders don't know. Everyone out there thinks you're another futuretech fuckwit sucking NüIBM's dick while you mentally jerk your hot load all over all the electronics money can buy.

Meanwhile you're just a twenty eight year old asshole who jumped through the hoops and fees and permits and classes to get the auto-drive chip in your car legally removed. You don't have automatic microbe detection activated in the hallway in front of your apartment, you use your Alchemiter brand replicator as seldom as possible, and you actually own an honest-to-God oldschool fold out laptop with an actual physical keyboard. You're so paranoid about technology that you look like a fucking hipster instead of a tinfoil hat man _and nobody questions you about it._

Your name is Dave Strider and you are so attached to the grid that your balls might as well be nailed to it, which is hilarious considering you're so paranoid about humanity's eventual downfall being the disgusting Blockbuster mix of Terminator meets The Matrix that you don't even own a Roomba.

Not that you can trust Roombas; everyone knows you can't trust a Roomba any more than you can trust a livecat around a glass of water on a table.

To say that's neither here nor there is a bit of a misnomer because _here_ involves your ass currently planted in the back of your manager's limo and _there_ is the fact you've got your nose buried in your NüIBM MicroTab while Ms. Serket herself is trying to get your attention. Joke's on her: nobody can get your attention unless you want to give it and she is shit out of luck this fine day. You have no attention to give, like you have no fucks to give; you have an outright dearth of attention fucks and you like it like that.

That is, until Pesterchum flashes on your tablet and you pull it open on automatic reflex even though the push notification tells you that you _definitely_ don't want to do that.

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--  
AG: DAVE!!!!!!!!  
TG: fuck

You blurt out the word at the same time you type it and fancy suit be damned because you slump down in your seat like you can hide behind a three-by-five inch block of steel-grey and red pocket tablet and completely, politely, forever ignore the way Vriska is glaring at you from the other bench in the limo.

Her nails rake across the seat while she pesters you from her smartGlasses and casually, _oh_ so casually, you look back at your minitab. It takes all of a half a second to realize this was a mistake.

AG: Dave we have to talk.  
AG: I'm not taking "no" for an answer, and I'm not taking your silence for an answer, and I know you're reading this because I can see the reflection of my text in your shades.  
AG: Which I have WARNED you about as a potential security and privacy danger and I have suggested over and over and over for you to get a proper pair of smartGlasses. We can even get them as aviators if you're that damn insistent on keeping the style going.  
TG: vriska this is my brand right here  
TG: these shades sitting pretty on the bridge of my nose are as near and dear to me as the sweet bro and hella jeff franchise from the big movies down to the very last water capsule growing foam toy of sweet bros sweet ass  
TG: you cant just ask me to up and change things even if for all outward appearances they look exactly the same  
TG: you just cant do it  
TG: its rude first of all  
TG: and second what if it changes me what if i become one of those dopey assholes who sits on his glasses all day staring forward with a vacant expression of neurological joy at the images and sounds presented to him via technologically advanced eyewear  
TG: im going to be in a meeting watching videos of vietnamese dogwhores jerk each other off and come to orgasm while they stuff octopuses in their cunts  
TG: staring blankly into space while one of the shareholders tries to get my attention  
TG: mister strider mister strider are you attending this meeting or did you just send a stunt double with great plastic surgery as your proxy  
TG: that is an excellent question mister barrenhoffer ill answer it in just a moment im viewing an important bit of research on my glasses at the moment  
TG: theyll ask to see what im watching and ill put it on the big screen and either ill get fired and banned from the industry forever stuck working on shady mars colony adult films for the rest of my life or ill get a bonus and money to start the next movie because im a goddamn theatrical genius and they know it  
TG: throwing checks and grants my way while i stand triumphant  
TG: beautiful pseudo women gyrating wildly with cephalopods stuffed into their pussies for the camera to see  
TG: a rogue tentacle slides out from the warm wet cavern of glorious nügenderhood and that one woman with the beehive falls to her knees and kisses my hand  
TG: im that much of a genius and they know deep in their little black hearts i have just made them all that much richer  
AG: While I am impressed by your dedication to using an umlaut while refusing to otherwise use syntax AT ALL I can't condone this series of events.  
AG: I'll install a safelock on your new glasses.  
TG: vriska no  
AG: Vriska, yes.

"Also, we're here." Her voice cuts through the white noise of the traffic outside and the rhythmic tapping of your fingers on your microtab's screen and you jerk your head up so quick your shades - your boring, non-smartGlass, plain old shades - almost slide off your nose. You adjust them with a quick, practiced shove of your thumb against the bridge and decide you're going to pretend that never happened. It's not _that_ bad; you've dealt with worse things than getting stuck in a text conversation with your manager because you decided to take a trip down nonverbal lane into Fuck Speech town.

Things like this meeting you have no way to get out of.

"Can we not do this?" you ask and you do _not_ sound meek in the slightest. You are a hardened man at a raging twenty eight years old with three movies under your belt and you are _absolutely_ not afraid of dealing with the shareholders and the Fuckmongering asshole at the top who decides whether you get to continue making movies in the manner in which you have grown accustomed.

"This is the one thing we _have_ to do if you want to continue to be Dave Strider, the Man, the Movie, the Multitudes of Cavalcades of Failures." Ouch. Shut the fuck down. Vriska gives you a blessed five minutes to try and compose yourself but the composition does not come; you stare out the window and try to pretend you're not about to prostrate yourself to a bunch of assholes in business suits. It doesn't matter that you, also, are an asshole in a business suit, you don't have to impress yourself.

You're not sure you've _ever_ impressed yourself.

When your five minutes are up Vriska goes ahead and pushes past you, almost drops herself into your lap as she does her practiced crouch-walk to the door of the limo and not ten seconds later her chauffeur opens the door. She stands, you follow in short order and clutch your minitab in your hand with all the attachment of a child with a worn out baby blanket. You are calm. You are collected. Your face is a mask of stoicism. Emotions are not a thing you feel.

Vriska drops a hand onto your shoulder and you almost jump out of your skin. Despite that the two of you see eye to eye and she's a hundred pounds soaking wet you feel so, so much smaller than her. The way her lips downturn into a tiny hint of a frown makes you almost frown in return and you catch the feeling before it manifests, tamp it down until you're sure your stony facade is so intact it would take a Renaissance artist to chip it down, and exhale through your nose.

"What," you demand immediately.

"What?" she parrots back and then her frown is gone too, like she had a moment of being human that she wasn't aware of. A moment of pitying you. You feel angry and disgusted and you want to turn around and throw up in her limo so the paparazzi can't catch sight of it.

Somehow, you refrain.

"Stop frowning." That not what she wants to hear, judging from the way her eyes close and her eyebrows go up and she pinches at the bridge of her nose. One hand is still on your shoulder and she gives you a squeeze that you guess is supposed to be comforting.

"You're _okay,_ Dave." Her hand slides off your shoulder and she backs out of your personal space and that's that, that's all the reassurance and closeness the two of you allow. She's worked with you for near ten years now and sometimes you wonder if the two of you are even friends. You doubt it. You're pretty sure she hates you, but it's nice that she'll come by and eat pizza when you get reclusive and don't leave the house for a week. Maybe it's just part of her managerial duties or however that works, but you're the only person she manages and she lives a damn cushy life because of it. So, hey; maybe that's worth some disgusting pizza and cheap beer at a hair past noon every once in a while.

You watch her affect her business face, all sharp, predatory smile and bright eyes and when she turns to head inside the towering building you've exited stage limo in front of you do the smart thing and follow along.

You _really_ hate meetings.

  
****************************************  
  


The building is approximately five million floors tall and the ride up to the top in the glass elevator takes sixty two years and your penchant for hyperbole will never die as long as you are still around to exaggerate your plight. Every second the elevator rises, shoots up fast enough that you feel the weight of gravity as it makes the climb up forty three floors, is another moment that you feel your heart trying to make a jailbreak through your throat. That itch behind where your collarbones make that nice little hollow in your neck says you still want to puke and you're pretty sure Vriska will skin you alive if you let even so much of an iota of nervousness show through your hard facade.

Stoicism is in your blood; you have this thing is down to a science and you cling to it like you cling to your tablet right up until Vriska elbows you against your floating ribs so hard that you're sure one cracked with the blow.

"Put that _away,_ Dave," she hisses through her teeth without interrupting her perfect predator's smile. It's one hundred percent _Step into my parlor, Mister Fly_ and somehow it doesn't actually put you on edge in the slightest. You know it's an affected expression. That's not to say it's a front like your chill exterior is. No; Vriska is just like that _all the fucking time_ regardless of if she's showing it or not.

You figure she hasn't chopped your balls off yet so you don't have to be afraid of her. That may be A Mistake with sirens and big, flashy warning signs and everything but, eh. You'll burn that bridge if you get to it. _When_ you get to it.

The minitab fits into the inner pocket of your suit jacket and you smooth out your tie before pushing a single button through its matching hole. Look at you, well put together and looking great. It's like Vriska didn't even have to threaten your ass with a cattle prod to get you to leave your apartment.

She doesn't have to do much more than threaten since the time she actually showed up with one. _C'est la vie._

As you pass the thirtieth floor the sudden onset of fear and dread makes its home in the pit of your belly and you don't feel quite so okay anymore. It's not so bad that you jerk out and hit the button for the next floor so you can make an escape down the stairs - not yet, at least - but it comes on with a vicious suddenness that leaves you clenching your hands into fists until your well manicured nails are digging raw half-moons into your palms. Something in your throat swells up, lodges there, makes breathing nothing more than a rasp you suck in through your nose and you have to fight to get the air to pull down into your lungs. By floor thirty five it starts in on your heart and something pangs hard, hurts in this way you're all too familiar with and you wonder if this is the day you finally have that myocardial infarction and drop dead on the way to a business meeting to pitch an idea for a movie.

Goddamn, you're trying so hard to relax but you're this useless sack of mess; you can't breathe, you feel like you're sweating in places that shouldn't produce sweat, and that feeling of wanting to puke is still crawling up your throat like there's some invasive creature scrabbling at the inside of your esophagus and yanking on your uvula like it's a pull stop for the bus and you're freaking out, you're freaking out and you're not going to make it, you're going to ruin everything and there's nothing you can do about it and--

"Dave." Her voice cuts through your internal monologue and you're sure you're a mess, you feel like you've gone pale and green and sickly and everyone can tell how fast your heart is beating, but instead of being angry at you she just looks vaguely concerned.

Her concern is disconcerting.

She asks, "Is it bad today?" as she looks forward again and you wonder if it's not actually all that visible, and when you turn to look at yourself in the elevator's mirror-smooth metal wall you're actually _shocked_ that you don't have a single hair out of place and the most unaffected, disinterested slackness that usually matches casual boredom is still plastered across your mouth. You're fine. You evaluate yourself and decide you're definitely _not_ fine but you _look_ fine and that's all that matters.

"On a scale of one to ten I think I'm riding a nice solid eight." The eyebrow you can see goes up and you imagine the matching one on the other side does the same, hikes up above the rim of her glasses and keeps going like they're trying to make a break into her hairline to avoid the continuation of their finely plucked and penciled lifestyle.

"It's not a ten, you're fine." You're not fine. She knows you're not fine. Neither of you can afford to admit that right now. "Don't let it get worse, we can't afford that."

"I can't _control_ that, Vris," you hiss out between your teeth with more venom than you mean to and she doesn't even look your way. Her mouth twists to the side and her eyebrows go down and you know that expression she has, it's the visualization of _I know that, don't talk to me like I'm an idiot_ that you're all too familiar with.

"You're going to have to." It doesn't help and it doesn't make you feel better but somehow reminding you that you seriously cannot afford to fuck this up because this is about money and movies and your entire career sort of-- Well, not that it _helps,_ per se, but it gets you to at least swallow that lump in your throat and you manage one big, deep, solid breath before the elevator pings for floor forty three and you nearly jump out of your skin for the second time in twenty minutes.

"I'm going to have to." You repeat it so long after she spoke that she turns to look at you like you're starting a new conversation. Vriska places the remark, gives you the _No shit, Sherlock_ look, and leads you out of the elevator and into the massive reception area of the fancy-as-fuck top floor.

The receptionist beams at you both, but you know it's mostly directed at you. You're America's asshole sweetheart, its sordid love affair with gross, senseless satire so involved and poignant and hidden beneath sixteen layers of irony that they write it off as slapstick nonsense bullshit. The perfect blending of South Park, Jackass, and Clerks, all Kevin Smith humor meets Hunter S. Thompson vicious commentary that's so biting it needs a muzzle, and you do it as easy as breathing. You're a wellspring of ideas and since the studio is willing to distribute your films without the MPAA rating (which would have been the NC-17 kiss of death without a doubt for all three of them so far) you don't even have to conform to polite standards. You literally get to do whatever the fuck you want.

You want to throw up in the gorgeous potted orchid on her desk.

Vriska does the talking and you look as aloof as you can manage, which ends up being a lot easier than you expected. You're right on time, as always, not a second early and not tardy enough to fall under fashionably late. Your insistence on keeping your schedules exact comes to a hilarious juxtaposition with the fact that there's nothing that feels better to you than just not doing things and the heroin-like relief of cancelling plans is the only high you wish you could experience more often.

Halfway through your mental rant to yourself about how much you would love to scrap everything and move to a mountain top and shoot people who came to visit Vriska interrupts you to lead you into the meeting room.

Well, this is it.

This is how you die.

  
****************************************  
  


Spoiler: you didn't die, but you sure wish you had.

The meeting goes as well as you'd expect; Vriska does most of the talking until it's time for the actual pitch and then she hands the proverbial mic off to you. It doesn't matter that there are only twelve people you need to talk to, it might as well be twelve thousand for all the stage fright that seizes up in your belly like someone put your balls on ice and filled your stomach up with termites. It takes Vriska three times of prompting to get your half mumbled rambling to switch over to the proper topic and then you're so nervous that you can't even talk right. It's all fast paced babbling, firing off concept after concept in rapid succession and you swear every single one of them can tell how you're dying on the inside and trying to power through the way your throat is closing up. Any moment they're going to interrupt you and tell you no deal, you're too tweaky, ask if you're on drugs or are you just stupid, and you'll get shoved out onto the street by security and won't even be able to hail a cab.

Behind the safe barrier of your shades tears are stinging at your eyes when the Fuckmonger himself holds up a hand and tells you that's enough. You, of course, in your infinite wisdom, steamroll right over him and keep talking because _fuck you_ if you're going down you're going down with everything on the table. By the time you finish you're heaving in breath after breath and somehow look just as stoic as ever and the Fuckmonger laughs and says you can stop pitching, they'll give you the money, they just need time to draw up the contract and they can't do it while you're still convincing them how brilliant this next film will be.

They compliment your energy and enthusiasm and you straighten your suit and pretend Vriska isn't giving you a thumbs up from behind their heads. You absolutely do not return it.

That was twenty minutes ago.

That was then and this is now and now is when you're in the fortieth floor men's bathroom with your head hanging in an immaculately clean toilet while you lose your coffee, breakfast, that midnight snack, and you're positive that burning is the three glasses of rum you sucked down to put yourself to sleep last night. You're pretty sure you've been in here for a solid ten minutes alone and you've reached the point where there's not even anything coming out. All the glorious visceral relief is over and now it's just unsatisfying dry heaving and drooling. Remains of what once was a McDonald's breakfast burrito cling to the inside of the porcelain bowl and you marvel in this absent, disconnected way at how the texture reminds you of what you can only imagine cooked brains would look like.

When you catch on that thought you pull out your minitab and start a voice recording.

"Notes from the ass end of a business meeting gone well and my stomach gone wrong: investigate scrambled egg product versus cooked monkey brain texture, make visual gag that results in a lot of gagging, don't let the effects department talk me down on this one. It's gold, I think I can see spots of peppers, I didn't think they even put peppers in those cheapass piece of shit wrapped vomit... I should bring this back to them and have them rewrap it for round two for how much good it did me, and--"

"Dave, are you okay?" Vriska's voice is a lot clearer than you expect through the door and when the click-click-click of her high heels echoes in the stark, minimalist restroom you realize she actually came in after you. You're half touched, but only in the half that doesn't have any vital organs in it because, really. You know better by now.

"Yeah, I'm great. I'm fucking golden." She stops outside of the stall you're kneeling in and a moment later you see the swoop of her long, black hair cascade down to touch the near mirror-sheen of the tiles. Even if she doesn't peek her face under the door you know she can see you hunkered down by the toilet and losing your stomach in here and you're a pitiful fucking sight for it.

You must look ridiculous, curled over the toilet and clutching the sides of the bowl with one hand, minitab in the other, held close enough to catch the jagged, wet edge of your post-emesis breathing, pale in the face with spit welled up in your mouth and snot trying to escape down your smooth-shaved upper lip. Dave Strider: national disaster. Not like she didn't know you were in here puking but it still hurts to know she knows and you wonder what she thinks of you, if she thinks you're pitiful, if you're some drunken asshole who comes in hungover and winds up vomiting when he's reached the end of the "functioning" part of alcoholic and--

Wait, are you an alcoholic? Note to self: look up parameters of alcoholism. At what point do you go from "needs a drink or two to fall asleep" and branch into full on useless drunkard?

A bang on the stall door drags you out of your vomit-enamored reverie and you jolt and nearly drop your minitab in the toilet like the brilliant, shining example of respectable adulthood that you are. You wonder when that heart attack will do you a solid and actually, you know, _happen._ You're pretty sure you shriek, or make a tired, weak sound that might have been a shriek if you had the energy to be more surprised.

"Dave! Are you _okay_ in there?" Vriska sounds concerned. Her concern is still disconcerting. Why is she so worried, you're not any worse today than any other day.

"I _said_ I'm fine!" you snap back. It's not that you mean to be a dick but it just happens sometimes, especially when you're bothered by her bothering to care. _Leave me here to die_ is on the tip of your tongue and you bite it back like a champion. You deserve an award for that self control.

"You said you were fine five minutes ago and I've been talking to you and you aren't answering!"

_Oh._

"Are you going to come out?" Everything about her tone suggests an unspoken _before I have to come in_ and you definitely don't want that. The shadow of her hair disappears as she straightens up and you're thankful for one more vague, imaginary layer of privacy between your manager and the embarrassing loss of the basic bodily function of keeping your food down like a big boy.

You don't answer and instead just wipe off the rim of the bowl with a little toilet paper and flush it. There's not much you can do about your mouth until you get out to the sink so you slide open the latch on the door and swing it inward and try not to breathe when Vriska is right there in your face in an instant. She's scrutinizing you and you _hate_ when she does that because you feel approximately three inches tall under the vivid, hateful, invasive cerulean blue of her searching gaze and when she finds (or doesn't find) whatever it is she's looking for she steps back so you can go to the sink.

In your defense you do _not_ run away. Instead you do a forced casual stroll over to a sink basin as immaculate as the toilet and then you have to rinse your mouth out while Vriska watches with her arms folded across her chest and a frown on her face.

Someone opens the door while you have your head bowed in the sink and she snaps _Out!_ so quick at whoever it was that you don't even catch a glance of them when you jerk your head up to stare at the empty doorway through the mirror.

Great.

Quiet descends between the two of you and despite how uncomfortable it is you accept it more readily than another conversation. Either she understands your hesitation to talk about this or she's willing to wait until you're trapped in the limo again and can't escape. You suspect the latter far more than the former and resign yourself to your fate.

The two of you spend the next ten minutes in silence as you travel down the elevator and wait for the limo to pull up. You get inside first like she's worried if she takes her eyes off of you for two seconds that you'll turn into an elopement risk. Sorry to say, but she's not wrong and you don't blame her in the slightest. There's this weird moment where you debate bolting out the other door and into oncoming traffic; you actually entertain the fantasy of it while you sit your ass down in your customary spot and pull your minitab out of your pocket and into its rightful place in your waiting hands.

Shoving your nose in your tablet does nothing to deter her from opening her mouth and harassing you.

"We need to talk about this," comes out with far more delicacy than you expect and it bothers you. Everything bothers you, but this especially bothers you, because, as you've said time and time and time again:

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Dave, I watched you flounder presenting a pitch on a movie plotline you haven't been able to shut up about to me for a month." _We're doin' this man, we're makin' this happen_ rolls through your head and you _hate_ when you meme yourself because you're a giant piece of trash whose thought patterns work by remixing clips and phrases and you have no idea how you have ever had an original thought in your life. In fact, speaking of your life, you hate your life a little, but not as much as you hate the way she looks when you jerk your eyes up from your tablet and actually _look_ at her. Seeing her concerned is one thing but the sight of her half hunched over, elbows perched on her spread knees and glasses pushed up so she can steeple her fingers along the bridge of her nose kicks you in the gut something awful. It's the vague, unsettling reminder that Vriska is actually a real person with real feelings which, frankly, sounds fake as hell and you wouldn't believe it if you weren't seeing it.

You don't discount the possibility that she's putting on a show to make you listen to her. If she is it's working because when she continues on she has your attention.

"You have this entire thing outlined in triplicate, you have so many ideas for it I'm legitimately surprised the script isn't already written and you're _panicking_ when talking to a dozen people who only need the barest minimum of convincing to write you a contract and a check. There is something _wrong_ with you, and I'm not trying to be a bitch when I say that. You need _help,_ Dave."

She's not wrong. Something _is_ wrong with you, and you don't think you can say you're having an off day when _every_ day is an off day. You shove your hand up under your shades and cover your eyes just as she's adjusting her glasses back onto her face.

"I'm just having an off day." Look at that, you say it anyway. "I'm tired and I want to go home, Serket. It's been a long day and it's not even noon.

You wave her off when she tries to continue and slump back in the seat. Maybe there's something wrong but you're still functioning just fine; no Hollywood nutcase here, not like all those _other_ people with their therapists and pills and breakdowns and drug habits and all that shit that ends careers and drags people out of the limelight to fall kicking and screaming back to the realm of regular old jackoffs. The last thing you want is a diagnosis of _something_ that gets between you and making movies, because whatever this is? You can deal with it.

Hell, you've been dealing with it for twenty eight years and three movies and you're still alive and kicking and staying out of the tabloids. So be it you have a reputation as a bit of a recluse - your movies are good, your merchandise sells like hotcakes, and you have enough money to build a swimming pool filled with hundred dollar bills in your top floor penthouse apartment. Life skips past good and great straight into the realm of _actually living the dream._

That doesn't keep the nagging feeling out of your stomach when Vriska keeps staring at you and it's not until you pointedly ignore even her pesterchum messages and stare out the window that she finally gets the hint and leaves you alone.


	2. Chapter 2

When you finally manage to grab your cellphone off your nightstand and pull it up to your face you are outright _offended_ at the proudly displayed time of three-sixteen before you try to answer it. _Try_ being the operative word because you miss the slide on the touch screen three times before it catches under your thumb and you sweep it off to the right like you're trying to scrub something spilled and sticky off of your phone's touch screen. That is to say, with a lot more force and failure than is strictly necessary.

At least fifty percent of your frustration comes from the "SPIDER BITCH" (with accompanying closeup shot of a funnel-web spider's fangs dripping with venom) that pops up on your phone's screen. You're not sure why you picked that photo; it gives you the heebie jeebies every time Vriska calls you and sets you on edge like you're about to have to defend yourself from grievous injury. As you pull the phone up to your ear you figure that's actually a good thing because it puts you on high alert every time you have to deal with her.

You're still not sure she isn't planning on stabbing you one of these days.

Before you even get your ear against the speaker (which just means you still have one cheek smeared into your sheets and you're kind of sort of balancing your phone on your face) Vriska's voice cuts through the blessed blackness of your bedroom and attempts to bore a hole in your ear, through your brain, and out the other side.

"Dave! What the fuck, where have you _been_?" slams full force into your poor, abused eardrum before you even manage a _hello._ You lay there, eyelids so heavy you're damn near ready to fall asleep again, rolling your eyes back and forth in their sockets like you're either looking for an answer or are just going to continue REM sleep while Vriska yells at you for whatever it is you did.

"Sleeping," you say as articulately as possible, which means it comes out in a slurred, half-drooled drawl that sounds more like you laid off half the letters in the new cutbacks on speaking. Pink slips to all the vowels at the very least.

"I know you haven't been sleeping, you sleep for four hours a night, six if you're really tired, and I haven't heard from you in--"

" _Vriska_ ," you cut her off right there, because she's right but you're allowed to crash for longer than four hours if you want. All this faux concern is pissing you right the fuck off; she needs to stop pretending she cares as an excuse for bothering you all hours of the night like you have to remain on the shortest leash possible or you'll get into some sort of irrevocable trouble. "It's three sixteen in the goddamn morning and I didn't even lay down until one AM and can you just _get off my fucking back_ for _one_ goddamn night?"

She goes quiet for so long you think she hung up and just as you prepare to let your phone lay on your face until the battery dies she speaks up. The vague consternation and worrisome professionalism in her voice confuses you when she blurts out a succinct, "Dave. It's three in the afternoon."

You blanch a little because you _never_ sleep this long.

"It's Wednesday though, right?" you ask; you try not to panic as you wonder what's wrong with you that you slept for more than _twelve fucking hours_ which is, as Vriska just noted, _way the fuck more_ than you tend to sleep.

"Yes, it's Wednesday. Have you seriously been sleeping all day?"

"I guess I have been."

"Are you sleeping right now?" She sounds so serious that you want to laugh and you actually do a self assessment. Are you asleep? You don't _feel_ asleep. You _want_ to be asleep, though.

"No," you say, sounding a little more alert though no less face-smeared-on-the-bed.

"I'm assuming you haven't eaten yet." The sound of her voice gets far away and you imagine she's at sitting in her home office, phone perched on the corner of her desk in that little chintzy treasure box statue, and she's just turned to go grab something out of her filing cabinet. When the followup noise is a shuffle of papers you deem yourself a master of deduction and Vriska as being way too fucking predictable.

"No, I've been asleep."

"We should get some food."

"I don't _want_ any food." Now you're just being petulant for the sake of throwing the weakest tantrum possible. All you want is to go back to sleep and Vriska and that whole trying to make you _eat_ thing is getting in the way of that.

"Dave." You brace yourself like you're about to get scolded and try to simultaneously bury your head under the pillow and feel along your nightstand for your phone to check what time it is. A moment later you remember it's laying on your face and that is how Vriska is able to tear into you while you try to do your best impression of a fungus in the comfort of your own bed.

"Dave," she repeats, and then just continues on despite the noise of protest you make in your throat. "You _have_ to eat. You can't just _not_ eat, especially since I haven't spoken to you since yesterday and as far as I'm aware you haven't left your apartment for a week and a half--"

"Twelve days," you interject, helpful as ever.

"Stop being a shithead and come to IHOP with me."

"I don't _want_ to." Let it be known that Dave Strider, Hollywood sweetheart, is a fucking _child_.

Vriska sighs like she wants to punch you in the face and it's only distance and the face that you're her bread and butter that keeps her from doing it. Mostly the distance.

"Get dressed. We're going to IHOP. I'll be there in an hour." There's a pause and you think she ended the call before she adds, "Take a shower and put on some clean clothes."

That's her final decree before she hangs up on you and you lay there like the useless sack of shit you are for another five minutes. When you decide it's not worth the effort of a callback and an argument you drag your sorry self out from under the blanket and stumble into the bathroom with your phone in hand and your dignity (a.k.a. your pajama pants) barely hanging onto your hips.

Your apartment isn't so much a home as it is a castle, an impenetrable fortress designed to keep you in about as much as it keeps everyone else out. There are guards at the door downstairs and people need a keycard, a retina scan, or a randomly generated good-for-one-day-only sixteen digit code to even get in the elevator. Every square inch of the common area - halls, lobby, elevators - is under security footage. There are four different microbe detectors in the path from the building's massive sliding glass door entrance to your apartment door and you hate having to feel the vague static cling of the scanning beam as it burrows through your clothes, skin, and bones and tells you if you've picked up any hostile and invasive microscopic lifeforms and instructs you to step into the decontamination room for a quick spray-down to destroy the illicit hitchhikers.

Whatever happened to the days when people just washed their hands and prayed a lot.

Inside your home is as low-tech as possible. It's not like you're living without radios and TVs and Wi-Fi access pouring out of every socket, hole, and fixture; you just keep the motion detection on the lights and automatic climate control on the air conditioning turned off and you've got the innate help-voice AI disabled. Every time you go to Vriska's she's talking to her apartment's AI like it's another person and you _swear_ the disembodied voice tells her what to do more than the other way around. You affectionately dubbed the know-it-all librarian diction as her Spidermom, but Vriska calls her Aranea.

Calls _it_ Aranea. Computers don't have genders even if they do speak in the boring contralto one would expect from a mid-forties professional woman in a lecture hall; you considered recording an hour long block of the way it drones on and on just so you can have a guaranteed backup sleep plan. Except what are you going to do, crash out to what sounds like a female Ben Stein reading the Wikipedia article on Grace O'Malley like an awkward, robotic parent trying to soothe a stressed child with an inspirational bedtime story? No fuckin' thanks.

So you walk into your bathroom, flip on the light by hand, crank on the shower by hand, and fiddle with the knobs until you get the water to the right temperature. By hand. Look at that: you did it without asking your apartment's individualized, personalized AI to do all the work for you while it asks if you slept well. The answer to that questions is: no, you didn't. You never sleep well. If you had your way you'd never sleep but if you spent your days all hopped up on Brainjump and other quote-unquote work pills you're pretty sure you'd be well past burnt out by now.

It's just legal speed, like the way back in the 1950's and 1960's amphetamines were the legal alternative to cocaine. Not that cocaine is actually _illegal_ these days, not since the Personal Responsibility Act passed when you were a kid that made it so people could make and take whatever the fuck they wanted without getting arrested for it. Now they just arrest people for more boring reasons: too much product without a license, failure to pay taxes and audits out the ass, public intox laws that nobody remembers unless the blues need a catalyst for an arrest, and they especially love slapping down a citation for riding in a driverless vehicle without a sober individual to take over in case of catastrophic autodrive failure.

You look like shit and you make a face at yourself, all bags under your eyes despite sleeping for more than twelve hours. Maybe you'll hit up the building's spa down on first floor and take over a tanning booth and get one of those fancy cucumber and squid mud masks.

Not that the squid even does anything? Why do they have the squid? You pull a face in the mirror and actually tell yourself to "Stop asking questions you don't need the answer to."

When you run out of self reflecting to do with your reflection you strip off your pajamas, set up some music on your phone, and go to take that shower.

  
****************************************  
  


An hour later you're sitting in the passenger seat of Vriska's Audi, picking under your nails with a folded up receipt you found in her cup holder as she argues with Aranea over a scheduling conflict. You vaguely feel like the kid of a lesbian couple, stuck listening to Mommy and Mommy fight while all you want is to stuff your face with stuffed french toast, except you're a year older than one of them and the other is a fucking computer program.

It's nothing unusual; the two of them argue a lot. You think Vriska really hates Aranea and you've suggested about six hundred times that she ditch the near decade old AI and just hire an assistant but she never does. Something about learning processes and how long it takes for smartAIs to get used to the quirks of a new owner and some more bullshit excuses that completely ignore your suggestion that Vriska work with an actual flesh-and-blood human being. 

As much as you hate to admit it her hesitation to deal with _real_ people makes sense. The smartAI programming that hit the market around the time the two of you were in diapers was an insanely lucrative breakthrough that pushed up technology at breakneck speeds and made the tech revolution of cellphones and personal computers look like old vacuum tube bullshit. The key development was an actual capacity for an AI to _learn_ with quantum computing instead of the oldschool digital method of ones and zeroes ("the woeful limitations of transistor technology" they called it) and it turned out to be a complete game changer of everything humans knew about artificial thought processes. They were people. They were _better_ than people and it was all uncanny valley in mind rather than body in just how _people-like_ the AIs became. It was so impressive that ten years ago the nügender from the Mars colony who developed emotion programming for human interface AIs (ones like Aranea and the helper you keep turned off in your apartment) won a U-PAD.

Hell, it was the first time a nügender had _ever_ won a Universal Peace and Development award. You remember having to do a project on it for your gender in technology studies class in college; the class was an elective that you took for an easy A but damn if the teacher didn't take herself _way_ too serious and demand more papers out of you than your first two written communication classes combined.  
Despite all odds you actually learned a lot.  
You also got a B.

The more you think about it - and you don't really like thinking about it - the more you realize you're the odd one out with your vehement refusal to buy into the hype-turned-way-of-life that is the ownership of an artificial person. At least Vriska keeps Aranea as a disembodied voice uploaded into her car and home interface system and doesn't let it go beyond that. (Except for that one time she bought Aranea a quote-unquote "adorable" chassis styled after a jumping spider. You've told Vriska if you ever see it that you're going to punt it out her eighth floor window.) Other people go all out with the robotic bodies they put their AIs in and you've seen ones that look so good they don't even ping uncanny valley. At a glance, even a close glance, they're more human than human.

It's fucking _weird_ is what it is.

You clean your nails once, twice, scrape imaginary skin gunk out from between your fingers while Aranea continues to berate Vriska for her scheduling errors. It's annoying; you wouldn't let another person talk to you like that, never mind a glorified calculator and calendar app. Yet Vriska continues on, either oblivious or willfully ignorant to the condescending overtones that drip from Aranea's robotic, digitized voice, and you almost want to start a fight on her behalf.

Almost, but fuck her, she's dragging you outside to _IHOP_ of all damn places. Vriska can fight her own battles.

The three of you (two plus AI) find a decent parking space and Vriska taps her smartGlasses against the transfer dock by the radio to toggle Aranea from audio car access to visual access in her glasses. You have _no fucking idea_ how someone could stand having an AI like Aranea in their face, endlessly suffering her cerulean lines of text (and you know it's cerulean, she _always_ picks the same shade that Vriska uses on pesterchum) but it's not a problem you have or ever plan to have to deal with.

Technological paranoia pays off; that is the actual phrase you think as you follow Vriska in and get seated in a booth, on your minitab the whole goddamn time. An actual flesh and blood server comes by and takes Vriska's order for coffee for the both of you and you brace yourself for A Conversation.

"I'm glad you actually took a shower." She cuts in with a low blow as soon as the server walks away which might as well be the bell to signal the start of a round of verbal and emotional sparring. See? Even without the evil grin she's still just as vicious, predatory, and prone to being a giant fucking bitch.

"What, you think I don't shower unless you tell me to?"

"Not usually." Part of you is thankful she's looking at her menu instead of at you and part of you kind of want to grab it out of her hands and beat her with it.

"Funny thing, Serket. I, too, understand the concept of personal hygeine and wash my generic body stank off myself on the regular. With water and soap and no shower-in-a-can." You talk big for a guy who showered in AXE your first two years of college, but that was a period of time that involved a lot more parties and a lot less sleep.

"But you don't understand leaving your apartment more than once every week and a half."

"Did you take me out to feed me greasy breakfast food or to berate my choice of _where_ I spend my days? Because it could be worse, I could be hanging out at strip clubs and getting drunk at three in the afternoon like every other twenty something celebrity nightmare instead of sitting on my couch watching Netflix and talking to Rose on pesterchum when we happen to be awake at the same time which is usually between midnight and three AM so hey; I'd say I'm doing pretty damn well."

You both clam up when your coffee get dropped off. The server pours it out of the carafe and into your waiting cups and you order and thank her without looking up. Vriska gets bacon and eggs and you ask for three fruit crepes like you can't decide if you want breakfast or a sudden onset diabetic coma. Probably the latter since you fancy up your coffee with four sugar packets and three little creamer cups and don't even touch it until it's tan instead of anything resembling Actual Coffee.

Vriska takes her black because she's a boss ass bitch and you hate her.

"I don't see what the _issue_ is," you hiss at her when you busy yourself with stirring your sweet death syrup coffee and take a way too big drink of it. You _may_ have made a mistake because you think you just acquired third degree burns in your mouth. Well, it's too late now; you'll just have to suffer.

"The issue is that you're a fucking _hermit,_ Dave. That's not good for your image, it's not good for your branding, and it's not good for you." She pauses for your comeback but you're still swallowing the hellwater in your mouth and so she ignores your rightful turn in the conversation. "People are worried about you--"

"Who's _people_?" You interrupt the moment you can and summarily ignore the oversensitive roof of your mouth and every last action you have ever made in error, including this one.

"Your family, your friends, the people that work with you." The skeptical look on your face is half because she doesn't name names and half because she doesn't list herself in there. You would completely disbelieve her if she had. "Don't look at me like that. I'm telling you, you are _reason for concern_ and _that_ doesn't look good. Do you know how hard it is to hunt down everyone who would talk about your little breakdowns and explain them away until they're so boring and uninteresting they wouldn't think about going to a tabloid? You think you're protecting your public image by staying scandal free - whatever you think _that_ means - but people wonder at your _absence_ and you're going to have a _lot_ of explaining to do if you continue to act like you're a sixty year old nun instead of a red blooded late twenties all American man."

"I'm Canadian, Vriska."

"No, you're not, you're from Texas, I know you were born on a horse's back with a gun in your hand."

Well, she's got you there.

"Rude. I was born in the bed of a pickup truck, swathed in a Lone Star secession flag right before attending my first gun show. I had my mouth on the sweet tit of Liberty and Jutice and my hand on its cold steel protector within the first hour of my entry into this world."

The words are out of your mouth for five seconds before you grab your minitab and plunk that entire thing down in a note file for later. That's _gold,_ okay? _Gold._

Vriska just stares at you like you're stupid and returns to her coffee. She's not wrong.

The silence settles more comfortable than the conversation had; you check pesterchum to see if any of your friends are on and Vriska sits there with her unfocused eyes fixed on her coffee. She's probably up to her nipples in more complaints from Aranea and you almost feel bad enough to tell her to take off her glasses for a few minutes and come up for a breath of fresh air and have an actual conversation, pedantic bitch to pedantic bitch. The downside of that entire concept is having to follow up with a conversation after suffering her beratement for not wanting to go out and you decide, not for the first nor last time, _fuck her._

No, seriously, just fuck that bitch.

With no reason to speak because you take delight in the way her mouth screws to the side and her eyebrows furrow down (hah, _owned_ ) the silence continues. It's comfortable to sit here in a booth with your coffee with the background noise of life a vague backdrop to your senses rather than forced to the forefront. Conversation from people three tables away drops into a blurry murmur, further backdropped by the faint clank and tink of silverware and plates and glasses, further still rounded off with the distant noises from the kitchen, little flashes of sizzles and pops and calls for orders that fit into the three second window from when the swinging doors open and fall shut again. It's white noise. It's nice.

It's ruined when Vriska opens her mouth again.

"Dave, we need to talk about your--"

"I don't know what you're talking about," you enunciate through your teeth, clenched down on your words like you want to tear a bite out of them. Now here's a time where you mean all the venom that drips out of you and the way your shoulders go tight (hell, every muscle in your body goes tight, you're pretty sure you're clenched up in places you don't need to be clenching) is your version of a diamondback’s rattling warning. Vriska _should_ take one look at that and back off.

She doesn't. _Bitch._

"I swear to _God_ you are so deep in denial I'm surprised you can _breathe._ We. Need. To. Talk. About. It." She grinds out the words to match you and you look up at her to feel trapped under that cold, blue stare. Fuck her and her blue eyes. Fuck her and her trying to bully you into a conversation with the promise of gross food. You have enough money to pay her to shut up, you can afford to buy your own food, you could afford to buy somebody to tell you to eat your own food.

You are a man on a mission and today you do not back down.

"I don't know what you're talking about." See, look at that, you can be dense as fuck and jovial about it. You say the second repitition with a bit more levity in your tone which at least makes it look like you're not about to start a slap fight with your manager when the server comes back with her arms full of plates. She doles everything out while you peel the little paper wrapper off your napkin and once you've got your utensils arranged you continue to pay Vriska approximately No Fucking Mind.

The poor server isn't even out of earshot when she starts in on you again.

"You playing dumb isn't going to fix the problem."

"Aha, but there's where you're wrong. If I don't acknowledge a problem, then there is no problem." Jesus, you really _are_ that deep in denial. You're like balls deep in that shit, really just grinding your dick around in No Issues-ville like if you fuck it hard enough you can honestly believe it cares about you and thinks you're worth keeping around and-- shit, this got dark fast. Perhaps you ought to rethink your internal monologuing plans. Abort that plan, come up with a new one. So far the new plan is to shovel a disgustingly large forkful of crepe and whipped cream and strawberries into your face and then you don't have to talk to her anymore. Perfect. A++. You are a tactical genius.

"That's not how that works you enormous dickweasel. You have a _problem,_ Dave, and no amount of _oh no I don't have a problem_ is going to suddenly make you not act like a five foot ten trembling chihuahua when you get into a vaguely stressful situation." You swear she does these little conversational pauses when your mouth is full just so she can steamroller all over what _ought_ to be your time for a comeback. "You can't just shut down every time something happens. You're a big boy now, you need to address your problems like an adult, not like a little kid closing his bedroom door and pretending his room isn't a mess if he doesn't look at it."

"I have a maid to keep my room in order."

"Then pay a maid to keep your _brain_ in order!" Vriska practically barks it out at you and you have to remind yourself that she's like this with everyone before you take the sudden outburst personally

You take it personally anyway because she's pretty much your only friend aside from your old college buddies, and she's certainly the only one you talk to in person regularly, and not for the first time you recall that Vriska is your _only friend_ and well shit, _that's_ not depressing at all. What the fuck happened to your life.

Right, that issue you don't have. That you continue to not have. That you don't talk about because you don't have it and _by God, denial is a powerful tool._

"My brain is just fine." You scrape the whipped cream off your fork with your teeth and relish in the way she cringes from the noise. "And would only be improved by a frontal lobotomy or, perhaps, full removal, preferably in the next two to four years, but you keep telling me I can't donate my body to science until I die of natural causes so I see no choice but to keep it and allow it to bend me to the will of its dark bidding. It'll have me creating shitty comedy movies until the day I die."

"Talk to a _professional_."

"I talk to professionals every day. You're a professional soulsucking bitch and look at this, we're talking right now."

"Okay, first of all, fuck you. Second of all, rude, and third: you know what I mean. Talk to a _therapist_."

"I talked to a therapist last night. We had a riveting conversation about the subversive potential of subliminal phallic placement in a church setting. All those candles... kind of lewd, Vris. Kind of lewd. I've got the scene all planned out in the new screenplay, really get in on the self-flagellation shit, too. It'll be hot. I can smell the fanfiction from here."

You think if her face looked any more puckered up with frustration she could get paid for a sour gummy bears commercial.

"Talking to Rose doesn't count," she says while she pushes a hand under her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"Totally counts. She's one of my best friends. The sister I never had. The woman I turned into a lesbian because I am _that_ shitty of a boyfriend. How do you not count that?"

The worst part is that it wasn't even that big of a blow to your self esteem. You both were in college, you're not sure if you were a beard until she came out or an experiment to see if she could get herself to be content with dating a guy. At the end you were looking for reasons to break up with her because, to be honest, she made you feel like shit with her double major in psychology and behavioral sciences and her constant need to psychoanalyze every last little thing you did. At least Rose acknowledges that her constant analysis and dropping diagnosis after diagnosis on you before she even got her bachelors probably fucked you up (not in those words, of course) and that she's too close to you to offer any sort of professional help now.

She keeps telling you to talk to a therapist, too.

"Then download a meditation app. Read a book on coping mechanisms. Get an emotional support animal." You get vaguely concerned when she mentions animals while doing nothing short of mutilating her eggs, pouring hot sauce over them like she isn't the whitest girl you know. They're starting to kind of look bloody with how the red vinegary mess clings to the albumen and you look down at your crepes and wonder how people eat real food for breakfast.

"You want me to get a pet? You don't trust me to feed myself and you want me to get a pet." Okay, so you kind of catch on the ridiculousness of that. It's funny. Kind of ironic, don'tcha think? (Holy shit, that reference is so fucking _old_ though. Classic pop culture right there.)

"It's not like you have to get a livepet! You can pick up something robotic that--"

" _Wow._ Wow, _no_? No. _No_? No. Holy shit, next you're going to tell me to fire my maid and get a Roomba."

"Would save you some money..." She trails off and you're about to go off on her when you realize, belatedly, that she's fucking with you. _Oh._ You very, _very_ pointedly shove some more crepe into your mouth and ignore her.

"Dave."

Nope, you're ignoring her.

"Strider."

Ig-nor-ing.

"Supreme cockbite of the S.S. Cumbucket."

You snort and look up at her and _god dammit you were ignoring her._ Okay, whatever, she wins; you pay attention.

"Consider it?"

You make this noise kind of like a small child who’s only consideration is a temper tantrum but is left really debating if it's worth the effort. She drops the nice act and rolls her eyes before gesturing at you with a piece of bacon in hand.

"Dave, just fucking consider it."

There's not really anything you can say to argue the point like you want (because dammit, you argue so much better in text) and when you finally acquiesce (or more like you kind of grumble out a halfhearted _I'll think about it_ ) she finally, _finally_ lets you eat in peace.

  
****************************************  
  


The ride back to your apartment isn't any less awkward because Vriska goes right back to arguing with Aranea while you plunk away on your minitab, making notes about the new screenplay and tidying up scene ideas. On a whim you check pesterchum (and by whim you mean you obsessively twitch your fingers across the screen until you switch windows to your chat client) and scroll through your online contacts to see who's around. For perhaps the first time ever Terezi is on and not away and you _almost_ message her. _Almost._ You decide against bothering her because she's got enough on her plate. Law school has been hell for her, at least judging by her Dreambubble updates. 

It's not like you've even spoken to her in a year and a half, not directly at least. (You hardly consider leaving bullshit gibberish comments on her Dreambubble posts to be "talking to", even if you do it because you know she'll squawk with laughter at them.) Part of you wants to say you have no idea why she decided to jump from investigative forensics to a full on law degree but let's be real: she was born to prosecute and no amount of fancy lab work will give her the courtroom thrill she needs. When she actually had to testify in court over lab results about three years ago she came home in a tizzy, screeching about how perfect she felt with the judge hovering over her in the witness seat and the lawyers rapid fire questioning her paperwork.

You were a shitty boyfriend to her, too; you're still not sure whether it was more of an out for you or her when you offered to pay for her law school in exchange for calling off the engagement. Probably the both of you. By the time she took her LSAT the two of you weren't even sleeping in the same room anymore and when she got accepted into Harvard you celebrated with Taco Bell instead of the fancy restaurant you'd proposed to her at.

At twenty eight you thought you would've wrapped up a two year engagement with a big wedding and already have a kid on the way. Instead you're single and getting dragged out to IHOP for breakfast by your manager in the middle of the day because you slept for over twelve hours and woke up in the early afternoon. No part of your life has turned out how you expected or hoped it would, except for the part where you're excessively wealthy and are a household name.

Dwelling on if it was worth the trade off is as boring as talking about your nonexistent mental issues and so instead of sending her an IM you open up her Dreambubble page and leave a nonsense comment on her most recent post and thumbs-up it. That's sufficient contact for keeping up interpersonal relationships with your split-on-good-terms ex, right? Right.

Right.

At a loss for what else to do you almost look up to actually talk to Vriska when a notification flashes across the top of your minitab. Look at that: someone you would much rather talk to than Vriska. There is a kind and loving god after all.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

TT: Dave, in a page out of your book I'm going to subject you to a malaphor to describe the vexatious situation I find myself in.  
TT: Not to beat this horse into the ground, but you need to speak to a professional therapist.  
TG: jesus fucking christ on a crutch what did i ever do to deserve this  
TT: It was your unpropitious predestination to hold a place of honor within my coterie.  
TG: in english lalonde  
TT: You are, unfortunately, my friend. Thus I feel a certain level of affable obligation to speak with you when concerns about your well being are raised to me.  
TG: im touched  
TT: Don't be; I assure you the poignancy of the sentiment will pass shortly and you may return to your usual dispassionate facade.  
TG: are you insinuating i only pretend to be an emotionally constipated asshole?  
TT: Please, Dave. I would never insinuate you only pretend to be an emotionally constipated asshole. I would outright say it.  
TT: Dave, you're pretending to be an emotionally constipated asshole.  
TG: so who talked to you  
TG: who got you involved  
TG: who decided to make my private business decidedly unprivate and include you without my consent  
TG: thats some straight up violation of patient rights  
TG: isnt that against HIPAA or something?  
TT: Doctor-patient confidentiality doesn't apply when speaking between friends who have no professional relationship.  
TG: not even going to bother respecting privacy concerns  
TG: tsk tsk rose  
TG: what kind of therapist are you  
TT: One who does not and will not take on friends as clients. Instead I'm going to subject you to my undoubtedly unwanted albeit pertinent advice: seek counsel with a professional therapist.  
TG: hey newsflash rose  
TG: i dont know if you know this  
TG: but im familiar with that overdone piece of advice  
TG: you know why?  
TG: its sure not because i hear that all day every day from vriska  
TG: nope it sure isnt because i get little messages from you and john and jade and hints dropped that terezi and karkat are quote unquote """worried""" about me  
TG: and it sure doesnt have anything to do with how the board who oversees my movies is getting concerned by what they think is a wild swing between hermitism and mania  
TG: which is really just oh u know nerves if nerves were cranked up to eleven  
TG: as roxy would say  
TG: nbd  
TG: i dont need a therapist  
TG: i need to man up and deal with this  
TG: you know nut up or shut up  
TG: im not a soccer mom who needs to whine about how hard it is to shuffle around after suzie and bobby  
TG: or considering naming conventions these days taylee and izander  
TT: I want to argue about the names but I have a client who is a well to do housewife with two preteens and that joke is deceptively close to the truth of it.  
TT: With every passing day I wonder what names will be like in another ten years.  
TG: lets thank whatever god there is that we were born before names got weird  
TT: Agreed.  
TG: anyway rose im almost home so ill catch you later  
TT: Dave, wait.  
TT: Aranea mentioned that Vriska suggested a therapy animal?  
TG: are you fucking kidding it was aranea?  
TG: also good job on keeping your sources secret  
TT: I have not once ever claimed to not be a snitch when it serves me well.  
TG: fair  
TG: yeah serket was saying i should do some meditation shit or marinate in sandalwood and lavender bath bombs or get a pet or something  
TG: i wonder if theres a market for sbahj bath bombs  
TT: The tangent of your merchandise aside, have you considered it at all?  
TG: considered what?  
TG: the pet thing?  
TT: Yes.  
TG: jesus rose  
TG: she said it like an hour ago  
TG: i need to sleep on it or something  
TT: Aranea works fast.  
TG: i thought you didnt even talk to aranea  
TG: dont you have her blocked after you came home and had like two thousand messages to read in pesterchum?  
TG: i remember you bitching up a storm about how long it took you to catch up because you couldnt just let it go unread  
TT: You are correct, I have her blocked.  
TT: Roxy, however, does not.  
TG: so you got strongarmed into talking to me by your robot maid  
TT: She is my android companion. I removed the priority protocols of her original cleaning programming years ago.  
TG: you have a robomom who cleans when she feels passive aggressive at you and otherwise parades around the house affecting the mannerisms of a drunk college girl  
TT: ...  
TT: While I may argue with that specific wording the general meaning is far from fallacious.  
TG: aka im right  
TG: dont worry rose one day ill have a robot of my own and we can arrange a playdate  
TT: I would be hard pressed to believe you, of all people, would purchase a synthetic lifeform companion in a humanoid shape.  
TG: i didnt say id have a people robot  
TG: maybe just an animal robot  
TG: as asshole robot  
TG: just a tiny mechanical sphincter for roxy to wear like a ring  
TG: see thatd be perfectly fitting  
TG: ill propose to her that way  
TG: do you think shes gonna say yes?  
TG: dear miss roxy  
TG: will you be my lawfully wedded synthetic companion?  
TT: The "lawfully" has only applied for two years now.  
TG: yeah i know im putting in something about it in the next movie  
TT: I do eagerly await the newest installment of the adventures of Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff.  
TG: i eagerly await when youre going to give me movie rights to your books  
TT: You will be eagerly awaiting for a long time.  
TG: dont i know it  
TG: ok we just pulled up to the apartment im gonna get the fuck gone before vris starts the lecture again  
TG: catch you later lalonde  
TT: Likewise, Strider.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--


	3. Chapter 3

It's the middle of the night when you acknowledge you've lost control of your life, most of the way through a bottle of wine and a pan of midnight snack stir fry fresh off the stove at the riveting hour of half past one. It is officially too late to do anything responsible or interesting but too early for the crowded subway station level of background chatter in your brain to shut down due to exhaustion so here you are... cooking in your underwear and slippers, a housecoat hanging off your bent elbows like you're a lingerie model instead of a sad, sad man of almost thirty getting drunk off an expensive red wine that you really should be saving for a special occasion.

Fuck that shit, though. Every day that you end with the oily reins of your mental plasticity and emotional self control still held in your slack grip is a special occasion. Also, you made it two weeks without puking from stress or having another weird meltdown in a bathroom so really: treat yo self.

You've drank way too much and eaten way too little so maybe, in hindsight, you should have treated yourself a little more gently. Story of your life, innit. 

The worst part is you're not even sitting at the dining room table or even your kitchen island. Nope. In a fit of showing the utmost class you're standing at the counter, fork in one hand, wine glass in the other, your phone propped up against some grossly kitschy canisters you got from a thrift store because they really brought together the whole "more money than God and no idea what to do with it" aesthetic you've got going on. They fit right in with the rest of your decor which looks to be the most bizarre love child between "rich asshole" and "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff set apartment" and you will fight anyone who argues against your proverbial hardon for cheap decorations from Walmart, Target, and whatever designer vomit Goodwill has for sale. There's a plaque on the wall about _Save Water, Drink Wine_ and your kitchen rug has cartoony, clipart-style apples on it and your beautiful expensive refrigerator has an eight-by-ten magnet that says _Some people just need a high five. In the face. With a chair._ placed right over the touchscreen controls on the upper right door.

You also have tape over the camera on it, too. You have tape over every last camera in your highrise apartment. The concept of being watched by your own home freaks you out, but you leave the blinds on the far window-wall open all the time so apparently being watched by _people_ doesn't bother you nearly as much as the machines.

What are they going to see? This late-twenties emotional disaster crunching on water chestnuts laced with enough sriracha to kill a lesser man while standing around in his candy apple red briefs? Eh, it might get you some publicity.

It's been two weeks since Vriska hounded you about how much you stay in and how absent you are and you wonder exactly what you're supposed to do about it. You don't want to go outside and deal with people on the regular and make her have to clean up more of your awkward emotions and weird pseudo-wanna-be-heart-attacks and literal puke like you're a child who needs a nanny. On the other hand, you also don't want to become so irrelevant that you're only known as _The Guy Who Writes SBaHJ_ because that's just the recipe for getting locked into shitty, boring comedy movies like you're the new Adam Sandler. You don't want to write comedy _forever_ , just for now. Just until you find something better to do. Just until the populace gets enough of an attention span that you can present heavy handed messages without spoonfeeding it to them in two hour chunks of humorous deliveries and snappy one-liners like they're finicky children and you're wiggling truth at their mouths like _open up for the airplane!_

Ungrateful idiots. Huxley was right. The world is this gross mix of _Brave New World_ and _1984_ and nobody even cares that Big Brother Is Watching with his ever unblinking billions of mechanical eyes. You shove thinly veiled metaphors down their throats like feeding tubes and nobody wants to rage against the machine. They're all too busy wanting to fuck the machine instead.

You're never going to get over the synthform that was in Playboy six years ago. There's a reason Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff Three: Down the Town in New Pork City had the tagline of _Do Not Fuck The Robot_ like you could meme everyone into realizing how fucked up the entire situation is.

Ugh. You're _thinking_ again. Gross.

Perhaps the smartest move you've made all night is when you just go ahead and pour the last of the bottle of wine into your glass and then upend the bottle into your mouth for good measure. Just want to, you know, get those last few drops. When it's good and drained you drop the bottle into the sink and return to your phone to flip through the videos you've spent half the night watching.

It's all pet videos, emotional support shit like Vriska and Rose both suggested. You really don't understand why people invest in this stuff - livecats are cute and they've got neat little toepads (beans, your brain supplies, because you're going down in meme hell and you will not refer to a thing by it's proper name _ever_ ) and they're soft and they purr, but you're also allergic as fuck and would probably die. Hell, even the tigers that were on set for the second SBaHJ movie had you downing cetirizine like tictacs and that was a _light_ reaction. Dogs are just as bad. Farm animals don't get your nose going and after ten videos of baby goats hopping around you consider just going ahead and getting a kid to terrorize your apartment.

You, ultimately, decide against it. If you're not having real kids you sure as shit aren't going to have some caprine little terror bouncing off your couch and standing on your back while you sleep and screaming like a tiny, little, four-legged man.

The weird part is you eventually get into what _you_ consider the weird realm of robotic companions, little friendly AIs riding around in doll-like chassis that offer up tissues and kind words to crying children. Like you don't already know how _that_ goes, like you can't extrapolate and imagine the kid three years down the line, already sick of the little metallic ragdoll that coos how special they are once they get a taste of the real world and how very _not_ special some snot-nosed little ten year old actually is. You can only imagine how many of these cute little emotional support robots are lining the walls of pawn shops and electronic scrap stores, stripped down for the copper in their wires and the silicon on their circuit boards.

...holy _shit_ you are _bitter_. Even _you_ are getting sick of your brain.

So maybe, just maybe, you ought to check out one of these things. Wouldn't that be the most ridiculously ironic shit ever? The movie-directing asshole who would suck analogue's dick if he could, picking up a little robot to ride around in his pocket? Hey, you've got enough money, you could order one to look like whatever the fuck you wanted. The smallest little bird to sit on your shoulder like you're a modern day pirate, stealing the candy of ignorance right out of the populace's mouth with your scathing commentary and truth bombs that people willingly consume because they like your movies. That's a grand idea.

That's a stupid idea.

You decide that move couldn't possibly be more out of character and you do nothing short of chug the last of the wine out of your glass.

For the record: throwing up from alcohol and undercooked stirfry beef is not the same as blowing chunks from a nervous freakout so you don't reset the mental _It has been 14 days since Dave lost control of his basic bodily functions because he is a giant baby_ counter you've got going on. Good job, buddy. Another day of Adulting In The Real World completed with only vague fuckups.

When you finally lay down and close your eyes you feel like you're sinking and when sleep comes it's black and deep and dreamless, just how you wanted it.

  
****************************************  
  


"Dave, calm down."

Why does this sound familiar?

"I _am_ calm, Vriska. I am _so fucking calm_ right now, you don't even fucking know it, okay?" God dammit, you hate when your voice peaks up and does that weird pitched thing. It sounds like you sat on your balls and then wiggled around for good measure, all caught up in the back of your nose instead of settling mid-ways down your chest where it ought to be. It kicks your tone up like two octaves and while it matches that weird feeling like the cold fingers of death are clawing at the inside of your throat it doesn't really _help_ anything. Most importantly: it's not doing a damn thing to help you chill the fuck out.

So what you're saying is: you're a giant fucking liar and you are strung so tight and are gently panicked to the point that you don't even know what "calm" means. Just to clarify. 

You are about to go on TV and instead of sitting still for the powder brushes trying to bring your _glowing complexion_ down to Appropriate For TV levels you're clawing at Vriska's arm like a needy kitten, silently begging her for help she can't give you.

Well, if "begging for help" means you're snapping at her for every little question, damn near elbowed the poor girl doing your makeup in the tit for touching your shoulder without warning, and threatened to throw your diet coke on that super unfortunate kid who just told you you're on in five? Yup. Definitely begging for help, which is totally a euphemism for being a complete and total inconsolable wretch who can't be trusted to not act like a giant manbaby if threatened to be left alone for five minutes.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

Vriska finally helps by grabbing you by the chin and holding you still (which is not at all aided by her _sharp fucking nails_ digging into your cheeks) and the makeup girl smears powder over your premature wrinkles and neck with a practiced speed you're kind of impressed by. She even manages to blend it all in when Vriska moves her hand, despite you trying to swat her away and still bitching like you're method acting a female pomeranian about to birth a litter of fourteen puppies. (Your exact kind of bitching is highly specific, just to clarify.) By the time you finally get her to leave you alone you're six shades darker than is natural and you fit your shades back onto your face like they can maybe make up for the fact that you look like an actual human instead of a ghost fitted neatly in a sunset red suit.

Not for the first time you wonder with earnest sincerity if pissing yourself in fear will get you out of this and this feeling doesn't diminish in the slightest when one of the five million stagehands has you stand on the taped white X on the floor while you wait for them to announce your entrance. You've already been manhandled to get the mic clipped onto your lapel and you have no idea why you're even here - you don't want to be here. You absolutely don't want to be here and you throw Vriska a pleading look over your shoulder and she mouths _suck it up_ at you like that'll just solve all your problems.

You hate her so much that you want to build a blog dedicated to the mole that used to be on her neck and people squishing spiders just to show how much you hate her. One day you hope to kill her in her sleep, _that_ is how much you hate her. No, sleep murder would be too kind, too quick... you'll figure out the proper method of murder later.

For now you're treated to the delightful feeling of your stomach trying to crawl out of your throat when you hear the host start announcing for you and that's when your heart clenches up five hundred percent wrong. It hits you so hard you can't even stoneface through it and you wince and gasp for breath, fingers tucking under your lapel to rub at your chest. While all the _Thank God_ s in the world won't show how grateful you are for the extra minute afforded not listening to the extended introduction you can't get the clutch on your heart to ease up and you're running out of time and _god dammit_ you really didn't want to have this heart attack on TV recorded live in front of a studio audience.

"Just hold on," you tell yourself and then something in your chest goes _more_ wrong. Images of old movies with pretty women cinched painfully into too-tight corsets spring to mind and yes, that is _exactly_ the sensation going on in your chest right now and your rubbing fingers turn to clutching, turn to squeezing at your chest. Maybe if you can just get enough pressure you can--

"Mister Strider, you're on in three--"

Why is this kid telling you to get onto the stage, you're having a _heart attack_ here, he should be shoving asprin into your face and calling an ambulance, rushing out into the crowd to cry out _is there a doctor in the house???_ like some old TV show, to which some old man will say no, but he's a veterinarian, and then the kid can say there's some wheezing little bitch in the back who's suffering stage fright and needs somebody to hold his hand and

"Mister Strider, you're on."

Jesus, you _can't fucking breathe_ and you're trying to tell yourself you're fine, you're _fine_ but you're not fine, you're so not fine, you're not okay and you're dying and you have to go onto stage like this, your mouth is too dry and your chest is too tight and your heart is slogging through too-fast beat like some tubby kid being forced to run an eight minute mile in summer school for fear of repeating ninth grade gym class for the third time and the threat of heat stroke is right there, why are people doing this to the poor kid, why are people doing this to your heart, you're fucking _dying_ here and

You register that you're being bodily shoved out past the curtains and onto the stage and you don't have to look over your shoulder to see it's Vriska doing the shoving. All you feel in your clenched up, dying heart is hatred _specifically for her._

Also, fear, because you're _fucking dying and nobody cares._ Assholes.

The roar of the audience is a familiar sound when you stumble out onto the stage in a daze, but you can't run now. Oh, sure, you _want_ to. The emergency exit is right over there, on the other side of the stage, down the steps, and past the last row of audience seating over by exit stairs. You're one hundred percent positive you could bolt and make it out the door before anyone realized it wasn't part of some pre-planned skit and you consider it with every single last tiny iota of an ounce of your being.

Instead you walk a vague path towards the center stage semi-circle of chairs, turning in a full circle like you have no idea where you're at, and proclaim at top volume,

"This doesn't look like the Tonight Show."

Audience laughter is a comfort and you cling to it, latch onto it like a lifeline in the sea of nervous stagefright little baby freakout that you're suffering. You approach your designated seat and reach out to shake the hostess' hand with all the grace you can muster. Miracles never cease because you don't even death grip squeeze like you want to and your palm isn't sweaty.

"I'm afraid not, Mister Strider. Is that going to be a problem?" she asks and you wonder if she's ever seen a single inverview you've been in. She's not prepared for this and you're not in any position to pull punches.

"Not for you, Dina. My manager and I are going to be having words - she bribed me out here with a promise that I'd get to sing in the band. Do you even have a musical guest? How am I going to go from the silver screen to the MTV screen now? It's going to be Vines and YouTube videos for all eternity, hoping that enough of my fans enjoy offkey banshee wailing that masquerades as musical vocalizations enough to hit a tiny thumbs up to stroke my ego." You pop the button on your suit jacket and sit down, fold one leg neatly over your other knee and look to Dina like she'll be able to follow up heads or tales on your professed desire to pull a Jared Leto and ruin both of your careers at once.

She recovers with a practiced laugh and swat to your upper arm, follows up by settling back in her plush seat and one demure cross of her ankles later she's focused on you with a smile you want to say is fake. If it's not fake it doesn't quite look right and if it _is_ fake then she's very good at faking it. It reaches her eyes just fine but something about her nose, or her cheeks maybe...

"So, Mister Strider-- Is it alright if I call you Dave?"

"Is it alright if I call you tonight?" You add on the pantomime of holding a phone up to your ear, pinkie and thumb outstretched like the ear and mouth pieces of a landline handset (who even remembers those?) and wag your eyebrows up over the rim of your shades at her. Cue audience laughter - good work. She flusters - _excellent_ work - but she doesn't stammer in the followup so, obviously, you need to work harder.

"So, Dave--"

"Yes, Tonight?"

Cue audience laughter _again_. It's all that muffled snorting like they know it's not funny but they're chuckling anyway. You might as well be running this show - if nothing else your writers are better, because your writers are you. The writer, it's you-- god _dammit_ , stop using your own fucking memes on yourself. This is why nobody likes you, and probably also why you're still having a heart attack, and you have no idea how you're pretending to flirt while you're about to drop dead from that myocardial infarction you've been praying for. 

You really wanted to die in a place that was going to traumatize more people.

"So!" Fucking hell, woman, _shut up_ , you're having a despair filled internal monologue here. "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, the comedy gold that's taken the nation by storm over the past five years. It has, undoubtedly, been the most beloved comedy series that has hit the big screen in decades and even you are on record as saying you're not quite sure what about it resonates with so many people. So first, let me just congratulate you on your wildly successful formula for producing these hilarious masterpieces."

God, she's sucking up to you _so much_ that you're not sure if she's pandering to you or the crowd. The movies aren't that good - they're, to be frank, fucking shit. Oh, yeah, they're _hilarious_ and, being honest, you feel kind of touched by the number of people who genuinely enjoy them... but all the messages you're sending get mucked up behind the humor and it's only the amateur analysts on blogging sites that even pick up on how chock full of subtleties and hidden messages the films are. Critics have no idea how to actually _watch_ a movie with an analytical eye and considering they make money writing reviews you find that kind of disgusting. 

Okay, whatever. You're settling into the routine of TV appearances; that heart attack is chilling out some (how the fuck does a _heart attack_ chill out???) and you feign a half bow towards the audience. See, look how humble you are, you smarmy fuck. You're absolutely not sobbing like a baby on the inside and wanting nothing more to sit down, wail for your mommy, and go the fuck home.

"We're all hoping to hear something about Bro and Jeff's next adventure," Dina continues. You fix a halfassed smirk on your face and stare at her shitty dye-job that doesn't show up on TV but you can absolutely see how her stylist doesn't know how to do lowlights to save their life. Like, it's so bad you want to pay someone to fix it for her, you want to pay her to let you pay for it to get fixed. Does she even realize? "Has the inspiration for the next script come to you yet? The world is waiting with baited breath for a hint as to where the wacky lives of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff will go next!"

"Well..." You drawl it out, make a show of looking around, really just roll your head around a bit while you think about it. Hmm. A fourth installment. Could you possibly have the balls to push past a trilogy and make a fourth movie... and make it _good?_ That's the question. God, these people are fucking stupid - after the success of the first SBaHJ you were greenlit for four more movies so of _course_ there's going to be a fourth. Like anyone, you included, would let that cash cow wander the pasture instead of draining it dry until you butchered it for tough meat and weak leather.

Hidden from the audience by the curtain you spy Vriska giving you a thumbs up. Eh, that looks like permission to you: the papers are all signed, the script is almost finalized, you can talk about it a little bit.

"Well, I can see my manager back there," you hike your thumb towards Vriska and she scowls at you immediately before disappearing back into the darkness, lest some overzealous camera boy get her on film. You're not sure if she would even show up on a recording like that; you know it's _vampires_ that can't be photographed or something but she's such a soul sucking bitch... "And she's giving me the thumbs up, so I think that's the greenlight to talk about the greenlight. Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff Four is happening. Guaranteed."

The audience fucking explodes. Jesus, this is some shitty little daytime talk show kind of bullshit and even these people are excited about the adventures of your fuckfaced asshole characters. What is _wrong_ with people?

"Can you-- Can you--" Dina's locked in a struggle for volume with the audience and she has to wait a solid thirty seconds even with the microphone and speakers giving her an advantage in her fight to speak over the applause. "You heard it here first, everyone! Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff Four is on the way! Can you tell us anything about the new movie, Dave?"

"I'm not sworn to secrecy but, frankly, you assholes can wait until the production footage starts leaking to find anything out. I'm not required to tell you a damn thing."

"I-- Oh-- Dave, I mean, could you-- I'm just asking if--" There's the fucking stammering, listen to that. That's beautiful. You lean forward in your seat and half tip towards Dina's chair, drawing her in like you're going to whisper to her... and the entire audience because you know the microphones are sensitive. Damn little things, they offer no privacy.

"I'm just screwing with you, Dina. Geromy's joining Bro and Jeff again in round four. I'm not saying the duo is an official trio, but they're definitely sticking together for this go-round... and if I have anything to do with it I'll be getting a three month quote-unquote vacation in the Bahamas while we do principle photography." 

You don't even want to really go to the Bahamas that badly but you know there are private beaches that ban cameras and the idea of at least sitting out there wrapped up in a poncho and broad sunhat to protect your lily white, pampered ass while you soak up some fresh air without the looming threat of paparazzi is tempting. As is the chance to let people know that after the third movie's dismal New York setting things will be taking a turn for the tropical.

They eat it up like they're starving for more. Assholes.

The interview goes by in a blur; she asks about the movies, about your private life (which you politely tell her to fuck off, because nobody can weasel a lick of information about that out of you) and your opposition to technology. Deflection is key to making sure nobody realizes you're a paranoid fuck and you go on a five minute rant on the distortions of digital media and the near sexual satisfaction of anything and everything analogue and she only interrupts you when she has to bring guest number two out who is, frankly, one of the most adorable women you've ever seen in your life.

In the next five minutes you learn that she developed the most popular dating site on the net... which started as a way for cat lovers to hook up with each other based around a bunch of psychological babble that goes in one ear and out the other. She's like the love child of Jackson Galaxy and Dear Abby with more college degrees than you have movies and three books and an insanely popular web series under her belt. You realize, belatedly, that you watched a few videos of hers the last time you got drunk and went YouTube trawling for entertainment.

Her name is Nepeta Leijon and she smiles like the sun is shining out of her ass and the secret to the universe is more puns. You don't know whether to hate her or love her and the more she talks the more you think she may be one of the few actually genuine people you've met in the world. 

After the show is over you trade numbers with her because you work with both big cats and people in your movies and want someone on hand who specializes in both. She loves your movies. You sincerely debate asking her to dinner and feel your throat close up from the aura of residual cat that clings to her and decide, no. Getting laid is not worth the fact that she's probably so much of a crazy cat lady that you're allergic to her, too.

Vriska collects you in short order and leads you away from the crowd before you can get hounded for autographs and post-interview interviews and you are about as unthankfully thankful as you can get. You haven't quite forgiven her for literally pushing you onto the stage and you're absolutely ready to bring that up when you get into her rental car and head back to your hotel when your phone vibrates against your chest. In a weird turn of events it's Nepeta who surprises you with a text not thirty minutes after the two of you said your good-byes, and even though it's just a simple _It was wonderfur to meet you! :3_ you feel vaguely touched.

Ew. _Gross_. Emotions.

You return the sentiment and save Vriska the earful, even as she's peering at you from the corner of your eye like she thinks you can't see her. One day you're going to figure out what her problem is, but that day isn't today. Probably won't be tomorrow, either... you feel exhausted and your ribcage has this residual kind of ache in it so you slide your phone back into your pocket and rub at your chest.

"Something hurt?" Vriska asks and you groan in a weak negative.

"No, just felt like I was having a heart attack back there. I don't eat unhealthy, my bloodwork is good, what the _fuck_ is going on with my heart."

She looks like she wants to add something and doesn't, and you let the subject drop while you lean your head against the car window and stare at the lights as the two of you drive through the early evening city.

  
****************************************  
  


"You can't tell me there's no way I could manage to finagle in a tiger into this film somewhere?" This is what you open up with. Out of all possible sentences _this_ is your opening line. You are a disaster.

"Oh my god, Dave!" At least she's laughing, that's a good sign. "You called me just for that?"

"Questions on my poor life choices later, Nepeta. For now, questions. Focus. _Tigers_."

"Well, you're the writer! It's going to be your choice on if you do it but I can assure you there is no way a tiger can swim to the Bahamas."

You aren't so easily deterred, or maybe you just don't want to give up this conversation so easily because it's been six days since you left the apartment and you're starved for human interaction that isn't Vriska and, look. No, you didn't _need_ to call Nepeta instead of continuing to text her, but you _wanted_ to and isn't that enough?

"Okay, but tigers live in rainforests and the Amazon is right there--"

" _Jaguars_ live in the Amazon. Tigers are in Asia. Not South America, not Africa, definitely not Australia." Nepeta pauses with that little _hmm_ noise she does when thinking and you can't believe you're already cataloging her idle sounds. She reminds you way too much of a cat, except instead of a mix of _meow_ , _mrew_ , and _prrt_ she has a more human range of noiseless vocalizations. You appreciate the hell out of that because you sure can't pick up body language over the phone. 

Ninety five percent of the time you're lucky you can understand tone on a call but anything is better than talking to her on Pesterchum where she litters everything she says with cat puns and emoticons. One day the developers are going to part from their game plan of a purposefully undeveloped chat client with its absolute minimalist formatting and you're going to drown in emoji hell.  
Things you aren't looking forward to: that.

"Why are you so dead set on tigers?" she asks in a follow up after the moment of silence you give her, the nonverbal cue for passing on your conversational turn. You hem and haw over the answer for a moment, really mull over how much truth you want to give her, and decide to tell her the absolute minimal amount.

"They've been in every movie so far. The first one was the antag's pet, the second one were those steroid jacked up wild ones, the third had the escapees from the zoo. I need a fourth tiger for a forth movie."

It has _nothing_ to do with a promise you made Jade three weeks before she left for Borneo when she said she loved tigers and you needed to put one in every movie for her if you ever actually managed to finish a screenplay and made it big.

 _Absolutely_ nothing.

You goddamn sucker.

There's a beat like Nepeta is waiting for you to continue and you don't; you're too busy remembering how Jade looked with with her wild, dark hair strewn over your pillows, the blanket draped ineffectually over one leg and no clothes in sight, holding your hand and babbling about her upcoming research trip in the afterglow of your last time together.

"I would've also accepted that they're cinnamon cakes, too!" She pulls you off the path of memory lane and you marvel over how she's so perky without being peppy and you find it hard to talk to Nepeta without eventually smiling. To be honest, just bullshitting with her is kind of great therapy and you wish you could keep her, not that _that's_ not creepy or anything.

"Cinnamon cakes? Like cinnamon rolls, too good for this world, too pure... But bigger?"

"Exactly!"

How the hell does she make a vintage meme like that sound so adorable. You're laughing at the idea of a cinnamon cake tiger and decide you're going to work a magical cinnamon tiger in to the movie somehow---

"Shit," comes out in a hiss when your inspiration hits you like a frying pan to the face. "That's it. This is gonna be some fuckin' drug trip psychedelic vision tiger.'

"Oh my god, _what_?"

"You heard me, Miss Leijon. Word of God up in this shit, I have spoken and from on high the writer came down to lay his serious business down on this screenplay. There will be drug induced visions of a psychotropic gun tiger." You had this script all planned out and now you're ready to insert this bullshit as a major plot device. Or just a one-off scene to remain infuriatingly unaddressed in the rest of the movie. Angering the viewers is your greatest pleasure just past jerking off to great critic reviews.  
(You swear that's sarcasm.)

"Okay, but, why the gun tiger?" Nepeta sounds perplexed. That'll ease off as she gets to know you and realizes it's best to not ask _why_ and just accept your brain is fucked sideways.

"Political commentary about gun control." She doesn't make any of her surprised noises about you caring about shit like gun control from your throne of bullshit on high. That's how you can tell she actually likes your movies and wasn't just buttering you up - anyone who has a hint of a clue knows you stuff as much politics into your films as humanly possible, injected just beneath the surface like secret bites of cyanide and knowledge. You feel a rant coming on, or at least that's what you suspect when you wind up more or less pacing back and forth across your window-wall like a lion trapped in a cage. "Another shooting last week and the NRA is still tying the state of California up in litigation against restricting access to civilian styled rocket launchers, handheld rail guns, and super-power assault rifles."

"You mean that guy that got stopped at Disney?" Looks like Nepeta is up on the news: points for her. "Their security thought scanners are top notch, he wouldn't have gotten in."

"Right. Who knew we'd welcome thought-crime into the law books." Part of yourself dies a little on the inside from the very suggestion that thought-crime could be a _good_ thing. Desperate times, desperate measures, desperate political commentators and all that. "No, I mean that woman at the mall in Oklahoma. The one yelling about how the government wants to take her guns and force birth control and abortions on young women to prevent the second coming of Christ."

"Well, I thought she was pretty inspiring."

"I'm putting a parody of you into the film."

"You say that like it's a bad thing!"

God dammit.

"Hey, Nepeta." You're just gonna ollie out of the movie talk because who is the master of topic changes? It's you. "You've got an assload of degrees in psychology and shit, right?"

"Should I be concerned?" She doesn't sound concerned.

"Always." Points to you for honesty and you soldier on ahead. "What do you think of like. That whole. Using animals as therapists thing."

"I wasn't aware that was a thing but I'd love to go to a psycatatrist!"

"Get out." Anger consumes you. The puns are terrible. You know what else is terrible? You clearly did not remember that phrase right.

"Okay, no! No! Haha, I'm sorry, I had to do it!"  
If this were text she'd send you a smiley-face, a cute little series of symbols for a cat's face to show you she knew exactly what she was doing. When you respond with only a pissy _hrmmm_ she laughs and doesn't push for your forgiveness. "Did you mean a therapy animal?"

"Yeah, that." Right. A therapy animal, not a therapist animal, wow that was fucking stupid and you stare down at your hands and feel more than a little embarrassed by it. The kind of embarrassed where you'd really like to crawl under a rock for a couple days because _wow, fucking brilliant on the therapist animal thing_. All you wanted to do is ask her for an opinion on if they work and now you're all awkward and short circuiting out from the blood rush to your face and you wonder if you should've just not brought it up in the first place.

"What about them?" She asks it so sweet, so invitingly, like she wouldn't judge you for looking for some sort of fuzzy companion that would help you chill down when your nerves kick up and you get weird or something.

"Well..." Of course Nepeta wouldn't _judge_ you, she'll just giggle and make puns at your expense. Hell, you would too, if you weren't you. Because, really, you're kind of pitiful. Good job. "Can a magic psychotropic cinnamon cake gun tiger be a therapy animal for a trio of super high dudes?"

"Dave! You're terrible!" You're not that terrible, not really, and you only believe that because she jokes it out through a peal of raucous laughter. You claim guilty as charged and steer the conversation away from this shit entirely, shift it over to a topic she can babble on about for the next hour and try not to feel stupid about the therapy animal thing.

You fail spectacularly and decide to bin this entire fucking idea for good.


	4. Chapter 4

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

EB: hey, mister hollywood!  
EB: i saw you on hello california.  
EB: and by that i mean nana saw you on hello california and i got to hear ALL about it.  
EB: i'm surprised that anyone is surprised! with how popular sbahj is they had to know a fourth one was coming.  
EB: what were you going to do?  
EB: end it after three?  
EB: maybe I just have insider information because i remember you saying about five hundred times how they couldn't pay you enough to butcher that cash cow.  
EB: but speaking of movies...  
EB: are you going to need a doctor on set for your trip to the bahamas?

Oh, John. Never change.

TG: i dont know my dude do you think you could get away from the private practice life for a few months to work for me  
TG: what about all your loyal fans  
TG: aka the assholes who actually pay you  
TG: vs me who is merely one asshole that pays you  
EB: it's part of a health care group!  
EB: which means, just so you know, that there are other doctors who can cover for me!  
TG: oh are any of them cute  
TG: you got any bangable doctor babes to come out with us instead of your buck tooth face  
TG: oh yes doctor ill bend over and cough for you  
TG: be gentle its my first appointment  
TG: i definitely think my prostate needs a checkup at ten thirty on a wednesday night while I am at a level of inebriation neatly defined as fershnikit  
EB: oh, dave.  
EB: if you wanted me to check your prostate all you had to do is ask!  
TG: yeah right and what are you going to do  
TG: use live scorpions as lube?  
EB: i was going to say ben gay for that extra level of irony...  
TG: thats terrible  
TG: im stealing it for the movie  
EB: i demand royalties!!!!!!!!  
TG: have you been talking to vriska again  
EB: ...  
EB: *!  
TG: ok no spill why was she talking to you she hates you  
EB: she doesn't hate me.  
TG: i personally witnessed your breakup  
TG: i also personally witnessed her absolutely neurotic post breakup rituals  
TG: all of them  
TG: every last one  
TG: i had to listen to the angry breakup songs blasting out of the speakers  
TG: i was the one who went on two am ice cream runs like i was babysitting a pregnant woman  
TG: i have with my own two eyes seen her tear burn and photoshop you out of every picture that featured your dumb glasses and buck teeth  
TG: this is not a hypothetical  
TG: this is not a hyperbolic recount  
TG: this was well documented by casual observers  
TG: casual observers is a euphemism meaning me  
TG: im the one who had to witness all of this shit  
TG: she fucking hates you  
EB: listen, dave.  
EB: that was a really long time ago and we have grown up past that whole post break up bull shit.  
EB: we're adults!  
TG: were almost thirty that dont mean were adults  
TG: and dont pull that legally shit  
EB: legally we're adu  
EB: god dammit, dave!  
TG: i know for a fact you still have a hardon for old action movies and will do midnight raids on whatever cake your dad makes when you go home for christmas  
TG: so frankly i dont want to hear a single thing about you being an adult  
TG: for all intents and purposes we are not adults we are thirteen year olds in big oversized meat suits  
TG: we're piloting this shit like a bad anime mecha  
TG: just waiting for it to blow up in our faces in a big end season explosion  
TG: or more likely the batteries are going to die on us  
TG: just up and run out of juice  
TG: leave us there free floating in space calling down to mission control  
TG: i cant do it captain i need more power  
TG: what do you even need power for soldier  
TG: taxes  
EB: okay, well!  
EB: you're not actually wrong with that analogy.

You're never wrong, not when it comes to life AKA feeling like an oversized kid stumbling through the real world like you snuck into an R-rated movie and you're dealing with uncomfortable subjects you don't understand while simultaneously trying to evade the authorities that would put you back into a showing more fitting for your mental and emotional development. There are ushers shinning flashlights through the crowd while you hunch down in the first row so you can get eyefucked by some unapologetic violence that frankly scares the shit out of you. If you're feeling particularly middle class American you'll complain about it later, too. Yes, you saw the signs. Yes, you saw the ratings. Yes, you still want your money back. They have a _no refunds_ policy? Now you _definitely_ want your money back.

Note to self: too real. Also, movie material.

You put John on hold for a minute so you can finish your shave because while you don't particularly mind the comedic sight of yourself in the mirror, naked save for your boxers and white cream-fluffed face missing one distressingly defined strip right up the middle of your throat... well. You kind of want to get this done at some point _today_. 'Hold' means you set your phone down on the bathroom counter, pick up your razor, and absolutely do not suffer any invasive thoughts about cutting big strips of your skin off your neck that result in you shaving how ninety year olds fuck. That is to say: slowly and with great care to prevent bodily injury.  
(It's a five blade safety razor, even _you_ can't fuck up _that_ bad.)

Not that you do such things as actually _pay attention_ to yourself. Your eyes are glued on your phone screen while you slide the blade up your throat to slice off one foamy section of shaving cream after another, and hopefully some of the underlying scraggly blond stubble is coming off with it. John is still typing away, segueing back into talking about the upcoming filming even though you don't actually have a script finalized. Doesn't matter, though; he knows your word is good as God's when it comes to SBaHJ so the Bahamas idea is a guaranteed thing. Hell, if you said you wanted it to be set on the moon the company would pack the crew up and send the lot of you up to the Mare Moscoviense colony. Would definitely be good for the poor saps who live up on the dark side there because nothing quite gives an economy a boost like bringing in a bunch of rich assholes with too much money and nowhere else to spend it.

That's it. You're going to set SBaHJ five on the moon and then spend your thirties doing the kinds of movies you want to do.

(...holy shit, you're almost thirty.)

You harshly remind yourself that you're not even halfway through twenty eight and you are not doing this existential crisis thing on top of the tweaky nervous bullshit that already plagues you on the day to day. You will have your midlife crisis at forty and buy an expensive car and a barely legal girlfriend like a good Hollywood fuckwit, and not a day sooner. Maybe Vriska will come out to Vegas with you and get you nice and fucked up on an upper cocktail and gently push you into a manic breakdown before she lets you run rampant down the strip only to wind up in the news.

Famed Homebody and Hollywood Honey Dave Strider, Fucked Up On Pills and Let Loose Without a Leash. Exclusive Nude Photos Inside.

_Eugh_.

EB: i mean are you really going to still call me a kid just because i'm kind of a movie buff for my favorite genre and because i like eating baked goods?  
EB: that's harsh coming from a guy who still has nervous breakdowns and hides in the bathroom like he's avoiding middle school gym class, dave!

Fucking _savage_.

EB: also i went to way too much medical school to be a kid! it took me longer to get my doctorate than it took you to get two movies out.  
EB: and people depend on me to do things like  
EB: oh  
EB: i don't know  
EB: SAVE LIVES!!!!!!!!  
EB: which, dave, if your previous movies are anything to go off of you need me on set.  
EB: because last time, what was the tally?  
TG: a few bumps and bruises nothing serious  
EB: six concussions, three breaks, twelve sprains, ten cuts that needed stitches, innumerable abrasions that required bandaging and would likely scar afterwards...  
TG: so what i said  
TG: a few bumps and bruises  
EB: putting three stunt men out of commission does not classify as bumps and bruises  
TG: sure it does  
TG: anything classifies as anything if you believe in denial enough  
TG: like right now  
TG: i classify as a legal adult even though im only wearing boxers a pore strip and a vaguely apprehensive frown  
TG: this is all because im in complete and utter denial about how much of a sorry excuse of a productive member of society i am  
TG: neat how that works huh  
EB: don't worry, dave! we've all come to know and love your particular brand of uselessness since it makes terrible but hilarious movies every couple of years.  
EB: i mean i'm sure you've probably got it in you to make something better than sbahj but nobody is expecting it.  
TG: ouch  
TG: cuts deep man  
TG: i dont know if I can work with a doctor who says such blatantly hurtful things  
TG: so much for do no harm and shit  
TG: im gonna have to see about hiring up a nurse to help heal these sick burns  
EB: make sure she's a cute one!  
TG: what if i dont want a cute nurse  
TG: what if i want the manliest motherfucker ever  
TG: someone thats swole enough to benchpress me and then suplex my scrawny ass over a bedpan  
EB: this is getting weird...  
TG: oh no john it was already weird  
TG: strap in motherfucker we are entering the fun zone  
TG: gonna get a medical professional thats built like a brick shithouse  
TG: maybe two of them just for good measure  
TG: gonna have doctors hans and frans jack me up  
TG: way better than egbert md  
TG: who did not jack me up nor off nor any other direction  
TG: there was a massive lack of jacking with dear old johnny boy  
TG: ive got a deficiency that you arent addressing here  
EB: a deficiency in brains????????  
TG: seriously you never do the eight punctuation thing unless you were talking to vriska  
TG: whats up  
EB: god dammit dave  
EB: stop being so observant  
TG: look i just went on a tirade about medical molestation and you managed to remind me of dear old ms serket even after all that bullshit  
TG: so this isnt me being observant  
TG: this is you lacking any idea of how to be subtle  
TG: might as well broadcast that to the sky with how obvious it is  
EB: fine! fine! i get the idea!  
EB: yeesh! you don't have to harp on me like that.  
EB: it's no big deal! i was talking to vriska because...  
EB: well...  
EB: i was asking her if she wanted to give us a second chance.

In all the worlds in the universe you are absolutely positive there is a creature somewhere that's dumber than John Egbert, but you would be real hard pressed to name it right this very second.

Actually, no. You're not sure if there is _anything_ else out there as stupid as John because _holy shit_ when he makes mistakes he goes for broke. He and Vriska split on such bad terms it was a wonder either of them survived the aftermath. John almost didn't. Not literally, but it came when he was in the home stretch of year three med school, when he was little more than a ghost floating between his twelve hour night shift surgery rotation and prepping for his USMLE. One minute he had a girlfriend to come home to at the end of the day and the next he didn't, and it all went bad after they got into that screaming match that you, unfortunately, were there for. John said it came out of the blue but you've got more than a feeling that if he had no idea it was coming he wouldn't have been yelling back.

In short: he's an asshole, she's a bitch, he was a workaholic then and she's one now. If it hadn't crashed and burned when it did it would've by the present. Just because people are happy together doesn't mean they're good for each other.

You know all about _that_ one.

Jesus, though... He was asking if they wanted to get back together? It's not like he initiated the breakup or really did anything more than be his usual dopey faced oblivious self so maybe, just maybe, it's _kind of_ understandable why he might want to try things again. From John's end of things everything went bad due to nebulous school circumstances instead of any fault of his own. Of course, _he_ wasn't privy to the gross amounts of animosity that Vriska had been bottling up for the better part of the two semesters before she exploded on him. You played peacekeeper as best as you before shit went down but when push came to shove came to hurt feelings and surfacing frustrations being lobbed like grenades across the too-small living room you did yourself a favor and pretended you were invisible.

Well, your shave is done, your best friend is an idiot, and you have absolutely no responsibilities you have to attend to so you're going out. You rinse off the residual shaving cream from where you somehow got it on your ears, apply deodorant and cologne (neither one to your face), and exit stage bathroom door to get dressed.

Today feels like a suit day. Not every day can be a suit day, but when you want to go out and do things even though you feel like laying in bed with the covers pulled up over your head like the world's laziest pillow fort you need a little extra oomph. Some social armor. An outfit that says, "Listen, plebs. I am obviously rich and also too important for you, please do not communicate with me."

In truth it's more of a, "I am a tiny scared child who is constantly screaming on the inside and staving off these weird mini heart attacks all the time but hey, this is fine, I say, with the entire building burning down around me."

Close enough.

You pick out a clever looking suit, something charcoal grey and impenetrable with a vest and a pocket square and pull it on with practiced ease. Sure, you'd prefer to go out in sweatpants and a free promotional tee because you do vastly prefer function over form, but what if the paparazzi see you? Can't have pictures of you in ravioli stained pajamas all over Celeb Secrets and Shame.

Seriously, _goddamn_ CSS. You swear they have their microcams scattered to the winds and you probably inhale one every five minutes when you're outside. Can you really be called paranoid when there's _that_ kind of technological terrorism going on?

Damn shame, the state of this world. It's enough to drive a man to go trawling seedy thrift stores in the hopes of finding terrible inspiration and props for his upcoming movie.  
That's you.  
You're the man.  
(You're the man now, dog.)

Oh, you should probably respond to John, or just leave him hanging for another twenty minutes while you make coffee to go, either way works. _Either way_ means you turn your phone screen back on and check the twenty seven messages he's left in your absense.

EB: i know, i know! it's stupid of me to do that.  
EB: we broke up really badly, i know that.  
EB: but i was happy with her! i really had something nice with her, or maybe it wasn't as nice as it could have been but she really grounded me.  
EB: i feel too flighty and vriska was, well, also really flighty when i think back about it, but we were flighty in that way where we both had to sit down and think about things non flightily to get anything done.  
EB: i really think i might have dropped out of premed if she hadn't been pushing me so hard to finish it.  
EB: well, maybe not. i probably wouldn't have done it because i would have been too concerned about being a disappointment to my dad if i dropped out of school.  
EB: the point is that she and i worked really well together.  
EB: and if i had planned my time and schedule a little better during third year i wouldn't have lost her.  
EB: the days were long and i didn't appreciate her enough.  
EB: i realize that now.  
EB: well, i realized that two years after we broke up.  
EB: but it took me until last year to stop being so mad about it!  
EB: because at the time and for a long time after that i was really mad about it.  
EB: i thought we were doing so well together and we weren't!  
EB: and you're right, dave.  
EB: i had to have known something was going on between her always going to stay with her sister and how she got so short with me or would lock the bedroom door.  
EB: i thought  
EB: i don't know what i thought.  
EB: i thought something and it was a hefty pile of denial at the time.  
EB: but i'm an established doctor and she's an established agent, we aren't kids dragging our asses through school anymore!  
EB: so i asked her if she ever thought about us, in that nebulous, wistful, nostalgic way.  
EB: and yeah! she does.  
EB: because it's lonely to lay in bed by yourself and not have someone to put an arm around.  
EB: but...  
EB: she won't consider giving us another chance.  
EB: so that's that.  
EB: dave? are you still there?

...he really is a nostalgic, lovesick fool, isn't he.

It is real lonely to lay in bed by yourself and you don't think about how long it's been since you've enjoyed the way the mattress dips in towards another body, how a back feels against your chest and the way your bony fingers never actually lace right with someone else's and how you always got so much shit for sleeping in your socks.

You really wish someone was around to give you shit for sleeping in your socks.

TG: yeah im still here  
TG: i think youre a fucking idiot  
TG: so are you two on speaking terms?  
EB: yeah.  
EB: she says she's willing to actually rebuild our friendship if i want.  
EB: and, you know. maybe after enough time that will mean our romance, too.  
TG: you cant just wait it out hoping that her no will turn into a yes  
TG: she was pretty clear with the shooting you down thing  
EB: no, i know!  
EB: i just mean that maybe she'll change her mind.  
TG: john  
EB: i'm not going to put my life on hold waiting for it!  
TG: john  
EB: but we don't know what might happen in the future and if i don't stick it out i won't know either.  
TG: john!  
TG: don't be That Guy  
EB: i'm not That Guy!  
TG: you sound like That Guy  
EB: i am five hundred percent NOT That Guy, thank you!  
TG: uh huh  
EB: fuck you, dave. just fuck you.  
TG: as much as id like to take you up on that offer johnny boy  
TG: ive got things to see and people to do  
EB: sure, i believe that.  
TG: just going to ignore your obvious sarcasm  
TG: anyway  
TG: do me a favor and chill  
TG: ill catch you later  
EB: ok, but!  
EB: bahamas doctor.  
EB: bring me to paradise so i can find a cute girl to bring home.  
TG: jesus fuck john  
TG: was there ever a doubt you were going to be coming with me?  
EB: not a one but i had to ask  
EB: :)  
TG: dont send me smiley faces  
TG: i dont want your contrived emoticons  
EB: :(

\-- turntechGodhead ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

What a fucking idiot.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

TG: ill be able to give you like three months warning before we fly out  
EB: yessssssss!  
TG: fucking idiot  
EB: you love me.  
EB: hehe! enjoy your errands!  
TG: see you later dude

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] \--

  
****************************************  
  


You still have John on the brain when you get into your car and as much as having that bucktoothed nerd on your mind is the exact opposite of how you'd like to spend your day it's nice to know he's the same as always. Not that _that's_ surprising; out of all your friends you want to say you and John have changed the least. Sure, the vicious ambition you had in your teens and early twenties has given way to this weird freaky trembly flippy-outty bullshit at random intervals, but your core personality (half bleeding sarcasm at your own biting cuts, half ramblng asshole) has remained essentially untouched. John's still as much of an accidental asshole as ever, the king of foot-in-mouth syndrome, and between the two of you you're either one entire ass or a pretty decent dude.

...but now he wants to get back together with _Vriska_ of all people, of all women, of all humanoid beings both organic and synthetic. If he wants that experience again he should just fuck a synthsex girl with dark hair that'll knee him in the balls when he least expects it. Add _makes excessively stupid decisions and has poor impulse control_ to the list of traits John never grew out of.

Okay, but you can't say shit about impulse control. You've always had an abysmal time being your own conscience; if anything you goad yourself into the most ridiculous shit when you really should just pull the _put it down and walk away_ maneuver. That's not even relegated to sticking your dick in the capitalistic coochie, either. Dating, directing, even driving. Did you need this slick black Stingray with the red leather interior? _No._ Did you cut a check the moment you saw how sexy this year's model looked?

No comment.  
(Yes.)

You definitely didn't need to pay extra to pull out all the auto-drive features; you're the only asshole on the road who actually has his hands on the wheel and his foot on the pedals. The woman to her left is putting on her makeup, the dude to the right is checking his stocks, and you're upset because despite how nervous all this tech makes you it's not like it's _bad_ for the world. Productivity is up, poverty is down, pornography is at an all-time high---  
Wait. Depending on who you ask that's not a good thing.

Legit, though; it's nice seeing how tech has changed everything but there's rot just beneath the surface. The world threw a coat of nice slick white paint over a termite infested house and you can't do anything about it. Even raising awareness openly gets people labeled as hippies or radical left-wingers trying to undo all the good that the world has undergone in the past how-many-years. Activism is a careful line to cross and it's so much easier to pour information and allegories into your films than it is to get up on podiums and get arrested while yelling for people to wake the fuck up and listen to the laundry list of sins the world is actively in the process of committing.

Man, you're really good at making excuses for what a coward you are.

That's all secondary. Tertiary. You will not dwell on that and start this spiraling self depricating bullshittery. You are showered, shaved, snazzed up in a suit and sunglasses. Ready to take on the world. Armored like a knight in shining silk. Today, fuck technology. Fuck the world. It's pawn shop time.

Your favorite pastime by a long shot. Sometimes you take Vriska with you (read: make her drive you around) to go trawling through thrift stores and seedy consignment shops, the kinds of places hopes and dreams go to die when people need to just get a few extra bucks and put up everything short of their firstborn for the low low price of cold, hard cash.  
(Cold, hard checks. Nobody carries _cash_ anymore.)

The first stop is this little consignment shop that's not too far off from where you live, less than ten minutes even with the traffic. You've been there three dozen times over the past five years; it's like a ritual that every month or two you pop in, look around, buy way more shit than you need, and get the fuck out before anyone recognizes you. Only the owner actually remembers you and she's a half blind little old Korean lady that pats your hand and calls you a good boy whenever you make sure to not step on her dog. She thinks your name is Andy and you absolutely adore her.

Thirty minutes of meandering the aisles later you escape, not having spoken to a single soul save for the owner's grandson when he rung you up and took your money. If only all of your interactions could be so short, concise, and impersonal. All in all it's a pretty fruitful trip; you stock up on kitschy bullshit that looks like it went out of style fifty years ago and walk out a hundred fifty dollars poorer with two bags hanging off your arms. It's like research and retail therapy all rolled into one, except you're not buying super expensive cars or three thousand dollar handbags or whatever it is the other disgustingly rich Hollywood assholes do.

You get out just as you're hitting the limit of your paid parking time and have to do a skilled juggle of goods and keys to get your car unlocked, all while someone waits impatiently for the parking spot. So be it their auto drive got them here, they're throwing you nasty looks with their arms crossed over their chest, and you suspect if you take a second longer than you need to they're going to start laying on the horn just to be a pain in the ass. You shift all your bags onto one arm, get the car open, and then into the trunk they go.

God fucking bless this fancy ass two seater car for having enough storage space to fit the fruits of your terribly thought out shopping trips.

Shops two, three, and four are all thrift stores. You buy every Hawaiian shirt and pair of khaki shorts they have, toss in a few dumb pale tan fishing hats and a couple of those big, round, bug eye sunglasses. Flip flops? Yes. Flip flops with _socks_? Hell yes. The undersized shopping cart looks like it's a warm body and a fanny pack away from being a forty five year old Florida tourist; add a handprint shaped spot free of sunburn on a chest and it's perfect. Who needs a mood board when you can show up to the costume designers with a mood box of the clothes of generations past, drop that shit down, and go, "More of this."

You're feeling pretty damn good about the haul so far. The sun is just starting to go down and you don't even realize it until you turn a corner and there's glare in your eyes in that sweet spot that the sun visor doesn't quite cover so you have to sit up straighter. Typical driving hell. Today has been a success and you figure you can head home at any time, at least that is until something catches the corner of your eye at a red light. Some guy dressed up as one of those inflatable flailing arm tube men is sign spinning for pawn shop you've never heard of which means a fresh supply of surrendered goods to dig through for the ultimate treasure of pure bullshit.

Fuckin' _score_.


	5. Chapter 5

The place looks pretty beat to shit, to put it lightly. It's not like the building is crumbling and begging for condemnation; it's just been open for some twenty years and judging from the paint peeling off from the corners and the edging it looks like that's the last time it saw some cosmetic upkeep. At least the parking lot looks freshly striped, though whatever company did it needs better business practices because you can see where the bold white lines are already flaking away from dirt that was painted over. This is why you take a push broom to the asphalt, people. A leaf blower. Anything. You don't just paint the fucking dirt.

Holy shit, that sounds like a subplot-turned-meme in a movie. You pull your phone up to your mouth and make a memo: _don't just paint the fucking dirt_. No context needed, because while you _could_ give yourself context both present you and far-future you will enjoy how near-future you gets pissed the fuck off at how utterly inane and vague present-you-but-will-be-past-you can be. Don't paint the fucking dirt. Don't fucking do it.

You are seriously bothered they just painted over the dirt.

Okay, you can be a pedantic prick about the parking lot paint job later. For now, you are a man on a mission and that mission is fifty feet of poorly striped asphalt to get into the double door entrance. Typical signage decorates the front windows: open from ten to eight, no pets or smoking allowed, employees are armed, money is kept in the safe and you'll be shot before they open that, etc etc. Nothing unusual. There's a classic bell ring when you push open the door and a quick look around the shelves says the place is a junk depot that probably has a fucking golden treasure hidden away somewhere deep within it. You're thinking someone's old school Moog synth or some gaudy heirloom jewelry or a collection of downright ancient TCG cards. Maybe one of those super classic Google Glass headsets from way back in the day, before smartglasses got super big. The possibilities are limitless.

A glance left and you spy an open archway over a line of shelves; you're guessing that feeds deeper into the store, maybe the section in the back where they have glass cases for more rare and/or collectable goods. Fucking _jackpot_. To the right holds the main counter; there's a teenager up to her eyeballs in old Dark Horse comics and you can't quite tell at a glance if they're worthless or would put her through college with room to spare for rent. You want the number for her stylist because she has the most _bitchin'_ oil slick colored hair and you want to promo whoever is responsible for that masterpiece. Next to her is an older fellow who looks like he was a biker two decades ago. He's years past grey and he's got his white mop pulled back into a deceptively tidy ponytail and he doesn't look up when the door's bell rings, focused on polishing some of the rings in that front glass case the two of them are sitting behind. Okay, jewelry in the front, toys in the back. You're familiar with this particular style of pawn shop setup.

"Can I help you, sir?" Old Dude says and you affect your best interested-but-just-looking posture as you saunter over and peer into the case. You have approximately less than zero interest in jewelry (unless it's _really_ fucking horrifically over the top, we're talking some orange sized brooch with mother of pearl and old bronzed chains dripping off of it. We're talking _big_ , okay?) but you peer in anyway because you look like money and it always makes the employees feel better if they think you're there for the jewelry. Then you get to wander around while you quote-unquote "think about it" and you can ditch out guilt free if nothing else catches your interest.

They probably think you're a rich fuck looking for a cheap engagement ring. Twenty bucks says they make really good mockups of jewelry store boxes so she really thinks it came from whatever parent company is pushing natural diamonds these days. Buy lab created white sapphires; they're cheaper and renewable and look exactly the fucking same.

"Just looking around," you finally say after about ten seconds hemming and hawing at the jewelry. The case gets a solid look, your fingers splayed politely on the glass like the bony spiders they resemble as you peer down; you're more looking at the (manager? owner?) old man with your shades doing an admirable job of hiding where your eyes are focused, and the way he peers down into the case as well signals he's trying to figure out what, exactly, you're looking around for.

"You're welcome to do just that. We're trying to get rid of some stock that hasn't moved in a while; yellow tags need to go now and red tags need to go yesterday so there are discounts for taking it off our hands." He's not looking at you anymore; he finishes the polish on the last ring, tucks it back into the velvet display tray and then slides that back under the counter. "If you need anything out of the cases come get me or-- Are you reading those goddamn comics again!"

"Yeup." Damn, this girl gives no fucks. There is a downright dearth of fucks to give right there. It's pretty impressive. She doesn't even look up as she turns the page before resting her temple against her knuckles, elbow planted firmly on the glass next to the comic. "Gotta know what we're selling, grandpa. Can't just keep all these comics on the rack without checking them out, what if someone asks me about them? What if someone's like, okay what's the difference between _this_ issue number one and _that_ issue number one, and I have to be able to be like, well this one is an original issue and that one is a reprint with an alternate cover after the original cover artist sued for not getting their royalty payments, so the exact same interior story has a four hundred dollar price difference."

He starts arguing with her, she argues back, you politely sneak away to hide behind some shelves. For once you're thankful you're not the tallest asshole on the block because you fit quite nicely between two tall shelving units displaying a gross amount of movies and video games and they even have some super classic blu-rays here. All with the red tags. You actually debate picking up a few of them but decide, with difficulty, that you love yourself too much for that.

There's scattered bullshit all over, everything from paintings to collectable bottle caps and stamps, phone cases and leather portfolios. You peek around a shelf towards the front and finally realize there are guns locked up behind the two curators of this pawn shop museum of junk and secret treasures and you turn tail and head right to the back because, being honest here? You don't want none of that.

The room beyond the archway is a little darker than the rest of the place, the long glass cases packed full of minitabs and smartshades and lit up to really bring them into focus. Just past the archway, tucked into the corner opposite the case, some dude is sitting at a folding table and going through a bunch of cards that are probably for some old collectible game that's well past obsolete and strictly in the "valuable to very niche collectors for very high dollar amounts" territory. You almost don't notice him with the way the lights are dimmed and you're proud of yourself for not walking right past him only to have a heart attack when you invariably realized there was a silent card ninja sitting behind you.

He doesn't look up so you stroll on past to explore the electronics case and see nothing that you give half a damn about. You could buy this entire case new from an overpriced tech store without any effort. Sometimes inspiration comes in the form of other people's photos and videos on unlocked phones and cameras but that's pretty much a goldmine limited to auction sites. Any self respecting pawn shop is going to do a hard wipe on the memory the moment the shit goes from "collateral loan" to "fuck you it's ours now" so digging for ideas there is a moot point.

Card Organization Dude is quiet as a mouse and it's putting you on edge something awful. You normally don't get antsy about people _not_ talking to you but he's one of those assholes where you're half afraid if you take your eyes off him for two seconds he'll cease to exist and you'll spend the next two years wondering if he was a hallucination due to you overworking yourself or maybe just a side effect of the California chemical atmosphere finally rotting your brain. So, in an effort to do future-you a favor and maintain your sanity, you break the ice with the most riveting and smooth introduction you will ever manage in your entire life.

"Are those Pokémon cards?"

You want to crawl into a hole and die repeatedly forever.

"Yu-Gi-Oh," he says, short and succinct and without looking up at you. There's a hint of something foreign in his accent and it catches you, because _of course_ it fucking catches you, so you pry.

"What are you doing? Picking out which ones you want?" There's another chair opposite the folding table from him and you do your best casual-I-don't-give-a-fuck meander to it and you plant your hands on the back of the chair and lean in, giving the cards a casual once over. God, this shit is _old_.

"Organizing." Okay, not foreign. Well, not foreign-country foreign. It's definitely American, probably some sort of Southern?

"You work here?" No, he's just some Joe fucking Shmoe off the street who wants to organize cards for a pawn shop in his spare time. Really, Dave? _Really?_

"Nah."

This asshole is really giving you nothing to work off of. Instead of pissing you off (okay, no, it _does_ piss you off but in that way that makes you determined instead of frustrated) it makes you pull the chair out and slide into it and you pick up a card only to have him snatch it out of your hands so fast you don't even get a glance of the name on it.

Fucking _rude_.

"You want somethin'?" Gruff asshole. Definitely Southern. You try to get a better look at him but there's a baseball cap blocking most of his face from this angle. All you can really tell is he's built broad and strong. Not bodybuilder style, but he's the kind of dude who probably has a shirtless picture on his dreambubble profile and who gets girls to fall all over him by flexing. The obvious answer here is that you already hate him and his undoubtedly dumb face.

"Just looking for something to buy," you offer back and he snorts, shifts his head up like he's going to actually look at you and _Jesus fuck, his jawline is perfect_ he aborts that mission to turn his attention back to the cards, the brim of his hat hiding his face again.

"Lemme know if y'need help with that." Okay, that's a fucking _drawl_. That is a goddamn _drawl_ if you have ever heard one and you're pretty sure this tightass polo wearing motherfucker does not belong in California in any lifetime known to man. 

"Is that a Texan accent?" you try to ask as casually and without contempt as you can and he snorts again and you want to break your hand on his face in a poor attempt of punching him. What is it about this guy that's got you riled up and intrigued? _Aside_ from the fact he’s the exact sort of ripped jock type you popped boners for in high school? Probably because he’s sitting in the dark sorting cards and that’s just the start of a good novel or a bad porno.

"Yup." It comes out like a yeh-up. Definitely Texan.

"What's a Texan doing out here in Cali-for-nye-ay?" God, you are a _prick_.

He doesn't respond and hey, look at that, you probably pissed him off. You pick up another card to look at it and he snatches it out of your hands once again, just a little too quick for you to even register what the fuck you're holding.

"Y'gonna buy somethin' or y'gonna get on my nerves?"

"Touchy touchy. I said, I'm looking for something to buy."

"Yeh, yer lookin' in th'wrong place. Ain't nothin' here you want."

"Now, how do you know that? Maybe some of these Yu-Gi-Oh cards are how I'm going to propose to my weeb girlfriend. Who needs diamonds when you can get down on one knee with a White Eyes Blue Dragon."

"Blue-Eyes White Dragon."

"Whatever."

"Yer girlfriend ain't gonna like you fuckin' up that name much."

"Yeah, I don't have a girlfriend."

"No shit, Sherlock."

You fucking _hate him immensely_ in that way that makes you want to punch him in the mouth with your mouth. _Oh_ , that's not a feeling you've had in a long, long time. Maybe that explains a bit; after all, you kind of have a proverbial and not-so-proverbial boner for relationship conflict. Half of your relationship with Karkat was based on that mutual antagonism bullshit; you hated it _and_ really got off on the thrill of it, at least until mutual antagonism got muddled up into just arguing over inane shit all the time and instead of wanting to mack on him when he pissed you off you just wanted to slam his head into a wall.

In the end you really didn't expect you could yell loud enough to match him, but apparently two years of that kind of bottled frustration really bolsters the lungs.

Enough about Karkat - that was a longass time ago, all of... last year? The year before? You don't put much stock in remembering the sordid details of your vast and varied failed love life, not when you're already fantasizing about the kind of shitstorm breakup you and Mr. Texas could have in six months or less or your money back. Shit, and you don't even know if he likes dudes. Is this what it's like to look at your next big mistake? Probably.

"What about you?" You're not subtle at all.

"What 'bout me?" Well, he's dense so that makes your lack of subtlety forgivable.

"You got a girlfriend?"

"Tch, _no_." 

Disdain gives you hope, what is your life coming to.

"Boyfriend?"

"Ain't you a little old t'be callin' significant others boyfriends an' girlfriends?"

"Okay, smartass. Why don't you just continue to dodge the question like a chickenshit MMA fighter."

"Whaddya think I'm doin'."

You can deal with that, but it doesn't put you any closer to asking this asshole for his number. Then you stop and really consider what you're doing: you're trying to chat up someone who is sitting in a pawn shop, organizing cards for a TCG that stopped being relevant how many years ago now, hoping to get his number while already imagining how much drama there is going to be when you two split. You need twenty six new hobbies.

"Well, you're doing great at it. Really impressively getting out of the way of the one-two K.O. of idle conversation. You got a name, champion of the Fuck Small Talk Brigade?" He almost looks up at you; you catch sight of his mouth and you think _oh, fuck me_ because he has full lips and a broad, beakish kind of nose and you're already sold. If he has pretty eyes you're just going to tear off your suit and lay on the table and tell him to take you right there and then.

"Bro."

"Bro?" Are you kidding? Is he kidding? _Bro_ is the legit name he's going to give you? "Is that short for something? Ambrose? Broderick?"

"D'I look like a fuckin' _Broderick_ to you?"

"Hey." Okay, okay, he snapped at you a little, you hit a nerve. Both hands go up and you assume the I Didn't Mean Nothin' By It position. "I don't know what your mother was thinking when she named you. Maybe you looked like a Broderick when you popped out."

He goes tense and you, very inwardly and very privately, berate yourself. Fuck, okay, you've probably just put your foot in your mouth and he's going to tell you to fuck off, and this is why you don't people. You can't do groups of people when it's important, and you can't do single one-on-one people in the privacy of a pawn shop side room. Like this is one step away from bar bathroom hookup and you're doing an absolutely glorious job at fucking it up.

"It's just Bro," he finally assures you after another thirty seconds of you biting the inside of your cheek in a very reasonable amount of You Dun Goofed nervousness. You quit while you're ahead and accept that instead of pushing.

"Nice t'meet you, 'it's just Bro'," and then you offer your hand over, which he takes, and shakes, and he's wearing fingerless leather gloves and his hands are fucking _huge_ compared to yours and you feel your heart flutter real dumb-like in your chest. Somehow you manage out, "Dave," without sounding nearly as reedy and winded as you feel and you pray to a god you don't even believe in that he's too dense and/or straight to notice the middle school girl level of crush you have spontaneously developed.

"Yeh, same." 

You're not really sure where to take the conversation from there, not when he goes back to flipping through the cards and organizing them into tidy piles, so you sit there just sort of watching him for a bit. You know, politely, like where your head is turned to the side but you're still kind of staring at him with your shades hiding the shameful truth of your interest. He still hasn't looked up at you but you can take in the details anyway; things aside from his white polo and the black leather gloves. He's all sunny blonde that goes way too well with how tan he is, the kind of color matchup that would look right at home on a surfer in a wetsuit more than some chump sitting in the dark.

Killer sideburns, too. Not just anyone can pull those off. He doesn't have any dirt under his nails and you don't spy any five o'clock shadow when he tips his head up enough for you to catch sight of his chin again, so he takes care of himself at least. Yeah, definitely boyfriend material. You're in the middle of trying to figure out the smoothest way to weasel his number out of him when you notice something on his shirt and when you lean across the table to tuck your fingers under the hem of his sleeve he makes absolutely no move to enforce the sanctity of his personal bubble.

Actually, only thing he seems concerned about is that you don't squish any of the cards and while you're inspecting his clothes he moves the stacks away from the table space you're occupying.

"You've got something stuck on your shirt," you offer up as a belated apology for invading his space and touching him without invitation. He turns his head to the side to see what you're fussing over and you try not to swoon at the way his muscles shift under his tight shirt as he stretches out his arm and twists it. When he finally catches sight of the red sticker he shrugs and doesn't bother to peel it off. In fact he doesn't even seem to register it at all, or if he does he has no fucks to give about it, and you suddenly feel really silly for bringing it up.

"Oh, it's one of those red stickers." Why are you still talking? Hell, why are you still touching him? "I guess that means you're for sale, huh." 

Dave Strider: flirtation master extraordinaire.

"Yup," he says, and it comes out sounding like _yeh-up_ again and you lovehate his stupid accent and his stupid face that you haven't even seen yet.

"What's the going price of a Bro?" Smooth. You wonder if he knows who you are, if he realizes you could buy and sell his entire life sixteen times over, if you’re famous, _if you want to bang him right here and now_. Let’s hope not… on _all_ counts there. 

"Iunno. S'probably got me on discount somethin' hard by now." Bro ignores the red sticker and goes back to sorting the cards into their relocated stacks away from your outstretched arm.

...wait, _what_?

"S'what th'red sticker means," he continues. "Shit's been here too long, get rid'a it."

"I missed something-- wait, you're _actually_ for sale?" There isn't a hope in hell of hiding the incredulity from your voice. You can't just _sell_ people, that's not how things work in this world, and especially not at shitty pawn shops in shitty parts of Hollywood where--

"Yeah, dumbfuck. I'm _actually_ fer sale."

Bro picks that moment to actually lift his head to look at you and you're caught up to speed in record time because of two things. One: he is grossly attractive in that very adult, very masculine way, broad jaw and defined lips and cheekbones that look like they're carved from marble. It's impossible to tell if he's mid-twenties or a youthful forty, but either way he is gorgeous and far more _handsome_ than _pretty_. Two: his eyes shock you into stunning realization because they're solid, pitch black with a single ring of tangerine orange in place of an iris and it is at that moment you realize you have been flirting with and are currently touching an artificial life form.

Which, in turn, means you make a truly Olympic quality idiot out of yourself in an effort to make that _touching_ thing not happen anymore. You jerk your arm back like his shirt sleeve just mutated into something horrible, like molten lava or live wasps, and you pull back so quick while trying to get up out of the chair and further away from him that your feet don't quite obey as rapidly as your brain demands. It's a disaster. There's this fast little pinprick of a moment when the toe of your shoe catches behind the leg of the chair and you put your weight down in the wrong way and you can just _tell_ everything is going to hell. Your leg twists, the chair tips up on two legs and leaves you with only one leg doing that whole "weight bearing" shtick, and right before you hit the ground you think _well, it's been a while since I made an ass of myself over a robot._.

He doesn't even laugh when you have to crab crawl backwards a few feet before you pick yourself up and bolt back into the main section of the store, leaving the upended chair where it lays among the scattered remains of your dignity.

Okay so, in the last five minutes you've managed to go from wanting to fuck a hot Texan to running from a highly lifelike robot with no realistic transition between. Which might explain why you're wheezing between two shelves full of antique junk clocks and belt buckles and modern collectible stuffed animals, one hand planted across your chest like you've just ran a marathon. Also, an incredible amount of embarrassment. You're hoping that California spontaneously breaks off into the ocean _just_ so the entire earth can swallow you up and there you'll go, never to be heard from again.

No such luck. God dammit. So you stand between the shelves huffing and generally freaking out with your pulse thud-thud-thudding in your throat, waiting for it to calm itself down while you practice some dumb breathing exercises so your heart doesn't start running too fast only to trip over it's own two feet. A handful of slow and steady breaths later and you're left wondering an age old question that you have wondered many times in your life: what the fuck just happened? Furthermore... what do you do now?

Obvious answer is you get the fuck out and never come back, but you're almost not even sure if that guy was a synth. You've _never_ seen a robot that looked _that_ real before; the closest you've seen previously has been Rose's 'bot, Roxy, and even she has seams along her jaw and wrists and, you suspect, elsewhere. 

Bro didn't have anything, unless the mixture of popped collar and fingerless gloves hid the usual mix of obvious access ports and joint seams from view. He looked so fucking _real_ and the more you tell yourself to get into your car and go home the more you want to take another look at him.

Which is a bad idea.

No... wait.

It's a fucking _terrible_ idea.

Arguing with yourself over it isn't getting anywhere, not when you're wheezing, not in a couple minutes when you've calmed down and are left pacing between the shelves, and not when you scream an internal _GODDAMNIT_ at yourself because sure enough you wind up peeking around that archway again in just another couple minutes time. Bro's still sitting there, the cards moved back to where they'd been before you invaded his workspace, the chair returned to its rightful place. It doesn't look like you ever entered into here and freaked out upon seeing a hot dude's eyes.

A hot robot dude.

A robot.

Fuck.

"Hey." You insinuate yourself in the archway as casually as possible and he doesn't look up as he sets another card into an appropriate stack; you kind of marvel at how careful he is with them. Way more than the robots doling out lotto tickets that leave them half ripped and missing corners all the time. "How long have you been here?"

"Year an' a half, give'r take." That's... Deceptively vague for a robot. You expected an answer like, _five hundred and thirty seven days_ or something else overly precise and unnecessary.

"You like it here?" Dumb question. Robots don't have _likes_ , they're just fucking _robots_.

" _Fuck_ no."

Well, maybe they can have dislikes. You mull over that for a moment and before you can stop your mouth it opens up and lets out a line that is not only cliché as fuck, but also a Giant Fucking Mistake.

"You want to get out of here?"

Bro pauses, one card held almost delicately between the fingers of his right hand, a tidy stack of to-be-sorted in his left, and for a moment you wonder if he short circuited or blue-screened or whatever the hell it is robots do.

"I ain't a fuckin' idiot," he says at last and now that you know he's not real you're _really_ impressed with the rich depth of his voice and how well he affects that accent. "There's a caveat there. What issit."

"Well." What is the caveat. What are the terms and conditions of you arranging his release into your custody. What do you want from a robot who is so real you thought he was alive even when you were touching him, especially when technology frightens you to the point that _you won't even buy a goddamn Roomba_.

Think carefully now. This is going to matter later. 

You're sure of it.

"Aside from the obvious fact that you'll belong to me, I don't really have any hidden strings or agendas. You want out of here. You are, undoubtedly, pricy as fuck. I, lo and behold, possess a disgusting amount of disposable income. You want me to post bail and spring you from prison?" He finally turns his head and looks up at you and he's nothing more than a stone wall, not impassive but flat out _blank_ , cold and robotic instead of stoic. The orange glow of his eyes bores into you, through you, and you imagine he's searching your face for the undoubted bullshit in your words. How many other people have offered this and backed out?  
(How many people say the third wish will free the genie and get greedy in the end.)

"Say the word," you continue now that you've got his attention, "and we're fucking _gone_."

He doesn't hesitate, just shoves up to his feet and _holy shit he makes your five foot eight ass look like a child he's so huge_ and stacks the organized cards into a big, haphazard pile before stuffing them into a plastic bag and back onto a shelf.

That's it. Some tall as a giraffe fucking swole ass Texan robot is going to watch you dig your grave and then make sure you lie in it.

Rest in peace.

Instead of dwelling on your mistakes you do a smart turn on your heel, smooth out your suit, and make a beeline for the front counter where you saw Old Man Pawn Boss and his rad little comic book granddaughter arguing. The argument appears to be well over and in the old man's favor because little miss awesome hair is hunched over a pile of knives with fancy handles, a rag in one hand and a tub of polish sitting on the glass case next to her while Old Man himself is fussing with some old school ledgers. Props to him for actually keeping physical copies of his finances instead of just trusting online banking to do it all. 

You clear your throat and both of them look up to you, and then immediately look past you to what you can only assume is the robot looming over your shoulder. Pawn Shop Dude opens his mouth first out of the four of you and he looks... concerned? Yeah, probably concerned; his eyebrows furrow up into this tidy little slash-like wrinkle at the top of his nose and it makes him look uncomfortable and worried and serious as a heart attack all at once.

"Bro, what are you doing? Go sit back down, leave him alone." Definitely concerned, and definitely antsy; the girl’s got the same expression on her face as well. You wonder if he's dangerous and you have made a very, very, very bad decision.

"Yeah, dude. C'mon, stop scaring the customers off," Rad Hair Girl adds and it clicks. Well, six foot something of synthbot would be pretty intimidating to potential customers, wouldn't it. As much as you want to look over your shoulder to see what Bro's doing in response to the scolding you don't dare; somehow it seems like it would be showing weakness and even though you've never bought into that pack behavior alpha-male bullshit before it somehow seems important that you show everyone you're not afraid of the robot that's so close you swear you can _feel_ him behind you.

"Nah, he's fine," your mouth starts talking without waiting for your brain to give the okay and it occurs to you that this is another fine example of your lack of impulse control. Did you think this through? No. Should you have? _Duh._ "Not what I was came for but how can I leave him behind? Way cooler than your typical robo-cat or whatever it is people get as quote-unquote pets these days."

Why are you framing it like you're buying a pet? Isn't that kind of dick considering he's---  
_He's not a person,_ you harshly remind yourself. _He's a thing, a thing made out of plastic and fiber and silicon and circuitry, a thing that some preprogrammed computers and robots in China put together in a dust free manufacturing plant. A thing with a pricetag._

"Yeah, that's fine," Old Man says as he fixes that wary look on you instead of the android behind you. He picks through his words carefully as he closes the ledger and motions for his granddaughter to go fetch him something else; you don't pay her any mind as she skitters off. "I was worried I wasn't going to sell him without a reformat anyway. There's something fucked in his programming so don't be surprised if he gets... weird."

"Yeah, yeah, sure--" you say, already bored of this conversation because it's making you nervous and you're _already_ regretting your decision. "Like too much spyware on a laptop or something, I get it."

"Not quite." When he pauses he looks you straight in the shades, right in the eyes, and even through the opaque barrier of your sunglasses you know he knows he's got your undivided attention. "More like," he continues, "if Siri got too smart."

You freeze, one hand peeling one of your lapels back so you can get into the inside breast pocket of your jacket, because you don't like that. No, no not at all, you don't like that at all. What the hell. Do you have Skynet 1.0 standing behind you? A Matrix agent? The Terminator himself? Is he secretly a tripod? Can he tell how your heartbeat jacks up into your throat, does he have the sensors to analyze all the chemical responses in your brain, the fear response at the idea of taking home the one android that might be the end of the world and the planet was only safe because he was stuck in a backroom pawnshop organizing meaningless bullshit under the premise of being long overdue for sale.

Can you bring yourself to renege the offer you just made? Can you bring yourself to _not_?

"Right, sure," you force out, feeling like your mouth is full of cotton and your tongue spontaneously turned into a lead weight. "Siri could use some smart." When Old Man Pawn Lord raises his eyebrows you dig your hand into your jacket, pull out your leather Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff checkbook, and crack a grin that looks as natural as can be and gives away none of the internal panic you feel in that moment.

"You take checks, right?"

Little Miss Pawnlord Junior returns at that moment with a heavy manilla envelope and hands it off to Pawnlord Senior. He digs out the docket of papers and spreads it out on the counter; on top are a few papers and documents with raised, notarized, microchipped seals. Under those are diagrams and repair reports from local synthlife mechanics. Every last receipt, every last notation, every last diagnostic. The last piece of paper is the title of ownership and he finally motions Bro to step closer to look over the documents. With the tension broken you finally glance over at your soon-to-be personal android; the baseball cap is missing and his hair a haphazard half-spiked blond mop that lacks all of the pristine styling typical of artificial life forms. He's even more attractive in the light. You hate yourself and your poor impulse control.

"Yeah, we do." Do what? Right, checks. "We got everything accounted for, Bro?" At the invitation Bro starts going through the documents, holds each one in turn for a total of a second before flipping it face down into a new pile. As he reads them you see the orange rings of his eyes brighten and fade, almost turn in circles like a stupid Windows cursor stuck in a thinking cycle. It's kind of pretty, actually, in a vaguely disconcerting lightshow way. It also bothers you immensely so while he goes through the docket your attention wanders to a tray of sunglasses in the display case just under your right hand. An inartful solution, but sometimes the simple answer is the best one.

"Are these SmartGlasses?" you ask, and it's the girl that answers you with a shake of her head. Mouths _designer_ and you can accept that for a reason they're locked up here instead of back with the minitabs and phones and laptops. They're probably expensive. You point at one without really looking at it and get Old Guy's attention as Bro's getting to the last papers in the packet. "These, too. Throw them onto the bill. What are we at?"

He gets them out of the case and hands them off to you just as Bro tosses the last of the papers onto the stack and flips them over into a haphazard pile on top of the envelope. You, in turn, hands the shades off to Bro who looks at the offering of designer sunglasses like you just grew three heads, ignoring his previous owner and/or employer doing the cost tallying in favor of giving you the world's greatest _what the fuck_ look. 

His expressions, when he makes them, are so incredibly lifelike that you find yourself second guessing if he's even a synth at all.

"Put these on. You live in them now. They're attached to your face." You offer no explanation for this decree and Bro doesn't ask for one; he takes them and unfolds the arms, slides them onto his face and you only now realize that they are the most _ridiculous_ pointy anime shades you could have possibly picked out for him.

They fit him perfectly and you're upset at how well he pulls them off.

The payment process is as anticlimactic as ever. He shows you the cost on an oldschool calculator and you fill out the check without complaint nor argument. More zeroes than you thought but it's not like you'll need to refinance your penthouse to afford him. You pass over your ID chip card and he cross references it and the check through the online system, comes back that everything is free and clear and that the check won't bounce. Once that's handled he signs off on the title of ownership, has you add your autograph to the dotted line, passes it off to his granddaughter to tack on a scribble as a witness, and then finally gets Bro to sign it as acknowledgement that you're his new owner. You stop paying attention at this point and hike your thumb at Bro.

"So, can I get a bag for this?"

Everyone but Bro laughs over that. Yes, yes, you're fucking hilarious.

The document packet gets put back together, Old Man Pawnlord shakes your hand and wishes you a great day, and you make a point of peeling the sticker off of Bro's shirt sleeve before ushering him outside and into the darkening twilight.

You lead him to your car and have no idea how you're going to explain the mess you've just gotten yourself into.


	6. Chapter 6

In the span of fifty feet from the pawnshop door to your car you have this amazing slip of the mind and forget Bro's a synth. He doesn't behave like one at all; there's no rigid standing-at-attention waiting for your demands, no soldier-like preparation to spring into action at the drop of a hat. The whole _your wish is my command_ shtick seems wholly absent from his programming. That's nothing to say of the way he walks; there's this heavy swagger in what should be a simple one-foot-in-front-of-the-other step and it gives him a presence and demeanor that you would be hard pressed to find in other humans. 

When you unlock the car doors he slides into the passenger seat as easy as can be, takes half a moment to strap the seatbelt across his broad chest (fuck, you're swooning again) and the moment the engine turns over he's fiddling with your radio while you stuff the thick folder of papers between your seat and the center console. Every expectation you have of a synth from your friends, coworkers, and acquaintances has not prepared you for what Bro is and you're not sure anyone else would be able to point him out as a synth if they didn't get a look at his eyes. Hell, with the shades on him _you_ can't tell he's a synth and you're the one who literally _just_ bought him.

He settles on a station playing something mournful and celestial and you're about to ask what this bullshit is when the drums and guitars kick in and the unexpected metal leaves you vaguely shaken in your seat. You’re more than a little surprised he didn't put on a country station and despite the fact that you’re the king of _looks can be deceiving_ you find yourself falling back into the exact same judgemental bullshit time after time after time. Not only do you expect synths to act like old sci-fi robots but you expect anyone wearing jeans that tight to either listen to country and wear cowboy boots or rock a beard and a flower crown, and Bro is currently doing none of the above and it’s weirding you out.

"I don't listen to a lot of heavy stuff," you offer after the solid forty seconds of silence (just between the two of you, the music sure as fuck isn't silent) you spend staring at the radio. Bro doesn't respond at first; he leans back in the seat (you wonder if he can appreciate the leather interior) and stares out the window and one of his shoulders bobs up in a shrug that you barely catch for how muted it is.

"Change it then." Aside from his accent his voice is the audio equivalent of a poker face and you can't tell if there's supposed to be any emotion in the statement. The tone is so flat, so neutral, so utterly lacking in anything deeper than the words themselves that with the barest inflection you could take it to be passive aggressive, straight up aggressive, or just _anything_ other than Robot Neutral. You reach for the radio and brush your fingers against the preset keys, then return your hand to the wheel without changing the station.

"Nah," you say, like you can take back your previous shock at Bro’s musical choice. Of course you keep talking while you maneuver out of the parking lot; that’s easy enough due in major part to the grand total of two other parked cars that you assume belong to the owner and his granddaughter. "Naaah, let’s leave it. New experiences and all. I could stand to listen to something different."

"Don't go actin' like you're fuckin' magnanimous 'cause you're listenin' to my radio pick," he grunts to the window. It puts you on edge immediately because once again _there's no fucking emotion to interpret what he means_. You take it as hostility, because that series of words in that order is usually said with a level of silent _fight me_ that you find infuriating and nerve wracking, which is exactly why your ever so helpful brain chooses to read it that way.

You maybe mutter a _fuck you, too_ under your breath and he doesn't so much as twitch in acknowledgement. You're already regretting this choice. You regret every choice. In fact, you regret everything you have ever done in the history of things there are to regret. This entire shopping trip? Regret. Being born? Super regret.

It takes you a minute to get your bearings but you get on the road and though you don't say anything about it you're just a tiny bit disappointed Bro doesn't comment on the fact that your car doesn't have an auto-drive option. Not that he cares. He definitely doesn't give a shit. He doesn't say that, but you decide it, and that's good enough for you. What's _not_ good enough for you is the fact that he clearly doesn't do things like _small talk_ and you are the master of _let me yammer until your ears literally fall off_ but you can't figure out what to say.

That's a first.

"So," you finally decide on when you're stuck at a red light. "Do synths eat?"

"Depends on th'synth."

"Do _you_ eat?" Here you are, trying to find a common ground between the living and the synthetic, and this pedantic fuck can’t just work with you and give you a straight answer.

"Yeh, sometimes."

"Really?" you ask and you can't keep the surprise out of your voice. You're used to things like Vriska's little spider-bot chassis for Aranea and that thing doesn't even have a mouth. Bro clearly has a mouth and it's broad and defined and there's teeth and tongue behind the generous dip of his cupid's bow and gentle swoop to the corners of his mouth and

Jesus fucking Christ you are waxing poetic about a _goddamn robot's mouth_. How long has it been since you last got laid?

Too long. _Too long._

...okay but he has nasolabial creases and what fucking robot has the faint indent of wrinkles in their perfect synthetic skin? Like, that's just insulting how real he is and that he so thoroughly tricked you and continues to trick you into forgetting he's a synthetic lifeform instead of some hot dude you just so happened to pick up in a pawn shop to take back to your place for five riveting rounds of the horizontal bedroom samba. You know, like you do with hot dudes in pawn shops.

"Green."

"Green?" What the fuck does _green_ mean, is that some new code for _yes, really, you utter dipshit_ or did you miss something? Bro looks forward and unfolds one arm to motion forward.

"Th'light's fuckin' green. _Go._ "

You snap your attention forward and sure enough, there's that green light and you are not paying attention to the road in the slightest. Out of the corner of your eye you catch him refolding his arms and that's about all the mind you pay him because really... you can't trust any of these assholes on the road.  
(They could be like you, after all. Neurotically particular and self-importantly superior to think their fallible humanity is somehow better than tried and true artificial intelligence.)

Anyway, moving on.

The rest of the drive goes in silence; Bro fucks with the radio a couple times more and you can't tell if he just gets bored with a song or has some preternatural ability to just _know_ when a song he likes better is on or what. It, like everything else, is a deceptively human trait and if it wasn't for the fact that he just didn't _talk_ you really would think he was a real person. Which he's not, you tell yourself for the umpteenth time, especially when you get distracted and remember he's your _property_ instead of a hot date. That little reminder comes when you lose track of your hand and almost reach over to squeeze his thigh in some silent flirtation before you remember what the _fuck_ you're doing and you reconfigure your palm's trajectory for the gear shift.

Good God, you're going to take a cold shower when you get home and that's _that_. Who cares if you already took one? You're taking another. You're just going to soak in ice water until you come to your senses and run screaming and crying to Vriska like a responsible adult and ask her to fix the mess you've gotten yourself into, because this shit? This is a goddamn _mess_. Not a mess waiting to happen, an actual serious mess.

You don't want to think of what the papers are going to say when they catch wind of this.

Okay, whatever. Fuck all that, all that is getting shoved squarely on the backburner (and you know what happens when you shove shit on the backburner? You forget about it and it causes house fires.) That can be dealt with in the nebulous _later_ that you love so much because right now here's the plan: you pull into your apartment complex's parking garage, find your assigned space (or, more, your row of four spaces that are all occupied by various cars you own like a proper rich fuck), and you crank the engine off and sit there trying to figure out what the hell you're going to do in the here and now.

Bro has other plans because the door opens and he extracts himself, practically climbs out of your low Corvette and stretches and you make this really stupid confused expression behind your shades. People stretch, not robots, but you sure watch him clasp his hands together and lift one elbow up like he's got a stiff shoulder and if not for aforementioned facts of his origins you'd be enthralled staring at how his muscles shift under his shirt.

You're enthralled anyway. Good job, you fucking tool.

The folder in the center console is as thick as a book and you wonder what's even in the damn thing; it's heavy and probably unnecessary, tune-up records or tax forms or something, you guess. It goes under your arm as you slide out of the car and pop the trunk to fetch the results of you going thrift store tag popping like an extra in a Macklemore song.

_I'm gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket---_

God _dammit_ , there is no God if you get that thing stuck in your head again.

So you're, what? Four, six, eight bags in, trying to load up your arms with plastic loops and those weird twisted handles on paper bags with Bro staring at you like he's waiting for something. You suspect he expects you to tell him to give you a hand and something about that pisses you right off. Fuck him, you've _got_ this. One trip or die trying. That's the Strider motto, through and fucking through, and when you manage to collect enough bags that you look like a Kardashian on a shopping spree with Kanye's money you elbow the trunk closed, hit the lock on the fob, and lead the way.

Onward, to victory.

He doesn't even _offer_ to help.

You take the trip through the parking garage up to the door into the lobby as time to further reflect upon your regrettable choices; the doorman greets you as per usual, you ask him if that crazy old bat on the third floor tried to stab him in the groin with an umbrella again, and he lets out this dejected, tired sigh of a man who has seen too much shit for too little pay. That serves enough distraction that you and Bro enter unquestioned and when you make it to the elevator you elbow the button and wait in the uneasy silence you're quickly learning he favors.

Which you.... don't favor. At all.

"You didn't have _anything_ to bring with you?" you ask out of nowhere, realizing absolutely belatedly that he didn't have any bags or luggage or even a plastic sack of muscle tees and hair product.

"Nope." Bro doesn't look at you, just keeps his arms crossed while he stares at the elevator doors.

"Do you have _anything_? A wallet, debit card, money, cash, any sort of _identification_ card or---"

"They don't generally let products on th'floor keep open bank accounts, thanks for your concern."

_Did you mention he puts you on edge?_

Before you get to cut in for him being a jackass about your well intentioned small talk the elevator musically chimes like the overindulgent piece of shit it is and the doors slide open to allow safe passage into its mirrored interior. The both of you step inside, you first, and as Bro settles up against the back wall you slide your key into the penthouse lock and begin the ascent to sanctuary.

It's a long and slow ascent.

Okay, it's not slow at all, the elevator rockets upwards but you're more than familiar with awkward elevator company and Bro is _it_. He's just awkward company in general but you're really feeling it now, Mr. Krabs. The silence is killing you. You have made a mistake.

_You should have bought a roomba._

This is what you mull over, lost in thought as you consider the absolutely exorbitant price that you paid for Bro and how many roombas and robotic cats you could afford instead. Maybe throw in a really pretty sex doll to satisfy your awkward, jacked up libido because you can be honest with yourself and admit that you made this purchase erroneously due in part to you thinking he was hot. That was not your first mistake, and it sure won't be your last, and it would do you a lot of good now to realize how many mistakes you're going to make in relation to Bro and to just abort mission right the fuck now.

Which you _don't_ realize, and thus you don't do.

When you reach the top floor, a.k.a. your so expensive you can _smell_ the money coming off of it apartment it's just a short walk from the elevator down the hall and to your front door. The hallway itself is pretty toned down and lacking in decadence which is nice because you're not sure you would appreciate a literal red carpet every time you went home.

No, you would, because it would be all the joy of walking down the red carpet without the cameras and reporters and paparazzi shouting for a picture and you almost walk headfirst into your front door because you're not paying attention and you internally panic that Bro just saw you make an idiot of yourself by almost walking into a door while you have a double armload of thrift store and consignment shop loot. If you were a TV show that you were watching you'd be dying of second hand embarrassment for your entire life right now. That's because you are a living breathing disaster and now there's going to be another person privy to the 24/7 shitshow that is your day to day life.

You make an excellent recovery by not actually smashing face first into anything, get your key out of your pocket and lo and behold: you unlock the door. No fanfare needed, just succeeding at mildly normal adult tasks with minimal fuckups. Bro at least has the decency to not comment on that you almost pulled a cartoonish walk-into-a-door move. (If he even noticed, which he must have, he's a machine and they notice everything. Good God, you're living with Big Brother.) The door swings open and you enter Casa de Strider with great gusto, one arm spread wide with the folder of Bro's life tucked under the other arm and pinned firmly to your side so you don't lose it.

"WELCOME, to the fun zone!"

Holy shit, you want the ground to open up and eat you alive.

Bro follows along behind you and you have to half turn your head to see the faint reflection of him in the edge of your shades and he looks mightily unimpressed by your pristine and impeccable decor mixed with fancy ass Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff merchandise. Your entire apartment is like the insane design of a hoarder with a minimalist aesthetic, your junk relegated to walls and shelves and maybe some decorative pillows strewn across the red and white couches and too many prayer candles of Bro, Jeff, and Geromy taking up too much space on your coffee table. (If anyone asks you say they were a joke gift but you made them yourself and you are desperately proud of how terrible they look.) There's a lot of open space in between all the clusters of what can only be described as Stuff that’s all stacked and organized tidily enough to look like decor rather than hoarding.

You love it and Bro looks like he has no opinion either way, which somehow feels worse than if he outright said you were a hack when it comes to interior decorating.

First thing first is the detour to the table to drop off your bounty (and you make yourself acutely aware of how ridiculous it is that you live by yourself and have a table this huge) and turn back to get Bro's attention. Except when you free your arms and spin around to see where he's at you almost run face first into him because he's looming over you with his arms crossed, staring at you instead of looking at any of your wall-to-wall bullshit decorations and that startles the everloving shit out of you.

Oh, whoops, there we go. The familiar feeling of your heart doing a back handspring into your throat because now you are both startled _and_ feel hyper aware of whatever silent judgement he's passing on you and the way you live. Man, that feels _so much better_ that you, for a brief moment, are too distracted by your pulse to remember how much regret you feel with regards to _literally everything_.

"Jesus--" you choke out. "Personal space, my dude. Back up a smidge, maybe don't get so close I can make out your pec cleavage through your shirt. Very nice. They just don't make 'em like they used to and all. No, seriously, take a step back--" You make like you're about to push him but don't make contact and he obliges with one full step in the reverse. "One more-- okay, there we go. Theeere we go. Good. Great. Good job."

You give him a thumbs up. You also have no idea how to interact with people. This is becoming more and more readily apparent.

"Thanks. D'I get a treat, too? Nice pat on th'head? Will y'lemme sleep up on th'couch if I keep being good?"

This fucker deadpans sarcasm like a champion and you are both embarrassed that you pretty much just called him a good boy like he was a dog (you didn't _mean_ it like that--) and really upset that his poker face is so on point that it makes your straight faced scathing commentary look like a fledgling ballerina stumbling through her first pirouette.

"I'll do you one better. You get, drumroll please, and let's see what's behind door number one--" You motion him to follow and head down the hall that branches off from between the kitchen and the rest of the main room; it turns a corner and feeds out to the terrace with a single door along the way. Bro turns the corner and you're imagining his expression is something like consternation at your annoying jokes and that's when you swing the door open.

"Your very own bedroom!" As if to spite you and your lopsided grin Bro snorts in this derisive way that makes the expression drop off your face entirely.

"Yeh, funny," he says, leaning to the side slightly to peer around you into the room. It's fucking massive, but it's pretty much a mirror of the master bedroom on the other side of the apartment. Which doesn't really make your room the master room, does it? More just, one of two bedrooms.

"I'm not joking. Here's your room." You get out of the way and he stares at you (you're imagining him squinting but you can't make out shit through the shades, and just for that you debate confiscating them from him) before he takes a step in and looks around.

Finally, he's inspecting something and seems vaguely interested in your place of residence. Which is also now _his_ place of residence so, score one for some form of engaging him in something. While Bro's looking around your phone buzzes in your pocket and you fish it out absently despite there being a total of maybe five people who message you and you have zero interest in talking to any of them. You know what you're good at, though? Not considering the consequences of your actions.

Because you're rich, and rich people don't have to look past their own nose if they don't want to.

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--  
  
AG: I'm messaging you instead of calling you because I respect you as an individual and a friend.  
TG: thats fucking bullshit and we both know it  
AG: Correct, but I knew you would be so offended at the thought you would HAVE to respond to me. Ergo, I know you're here and not asleep.  
TG: clever  
TG: but now i know your trick and i wont fall for it again  
AG: Yes, you will.  
TG: yes i will  
TG: whats up?  
AG: You seem deceptively jovial considering I just admitted I tricked you into talking to me.  
AG: What did you do.  
TG: shouldnt there be a question mark on that question  
AG: It isn't a question, it's a demand that you tell me what you did so I can fix it.  
TG: what makes you think i need fixing  
AG: Dave. I'm going to come over so you can look into my eyes and ask me that question again.  
TG: okay  
TG: how about you dont do that  
TG: and just trust me when i say i have no idea what im doing  
TG: but im doing it anyway  
AG: Is that not the definition of your life?  
TG: absolutely  
TG: now what did you want  
AG: I just got a call from the bank that an exceedingly large check is being cashed. Did you buy something expensive or did someone steal your checkbook?  
TG: no that was me  
TG: can you let them know it wasnt fraud or anything i did that on purpose  
AG: Done and done. What did you buy?  
TG: thats for me to know and you to wonder about desperately while i try to hide it from you  
AG: Did you buy another cave bear skeleton?  
TG: i am offended that you would accuse me of such a thing  
TG: also that was only like six grand  
TG: which is a lot less than what i spent  
TG: like were talking i could have bought enough cave bear skeletons to have an entire platoon of mounted cavalry in the skeleton war for that much money  
AG: Consider me curious.  
TG: considered  
AG: Whatever it is, I hope it won't come back to bite you in the ass later.  
TG: it absolutely will and may already be doing so  
AG: You absolute idiot.  
TG: correct  
AG: Anyway. Reminder that we're leaving Wednesday night for New York.   
AG: You have to pitch that new merchandise line Thursday morning, you've got a TV spot Thursday night, and a photoshoot Friday afternoon, so try to get some rest before that so they don't need to cake six pounds of concealer under your eyes.  
TG: did you message me to remind me why i never leave my apartment  
AG: Essentially. Also, eat some food.  
TG: id rather not  
AG: Also, take a shower.  
TG: why do you treat me like i'm an unwashed hikikomori?  
AG: Are you not?

You pause there because, well. She _does_ have a point but here in America we use words like _hermit_ so you're pretty sure it's at least a _little_ different.

Maybe.

"So, yer sayin' this bedroom an' closet an' that bigass bathroom what's a step short of bein' a private grotto is mine." Bro speaks and you jerk your head up from your phone and stare at him almost bewildered because first of all, the bathroom isn't _that_ big and also because it's probably the closest to not sounding like an asshole he's managed so far. Once more, with no inflection, so you have to guess where the emphasis in that sentence sits. Upon your nanosecond review you have no idea where it _should_ sit and you're at a fucking loss.

"Uh, yeah," you say, the pinnacle of eloquence and class. "It's yours. Everything from the taps in the shower to the dresser and closet. You can even put shitty NASCAR and anime stickers on the terrace door if you want." One end of the bedroom is wall to wall window, covered tidily with drapes and blinds with a sliding glass door that leads out to one end of the terrace. Bro looks at the wall of curtains and freezes before checking it out closer and when he turns you thank the Lord above for how his jeans hug his ass because _goddamn_.

Then a half beat later you thank some engineers for his ass, instead, and then you're just weirded out for checking out a robot, and you're back to square one.

TG: vriska can you find someone to hop on my dick  
TG: literally not metaphorically  
AG: I'm glad you specified because I was going to have to compose a spreadsheet of all the times you've explicitly told me to get off your dick.  
TG: ha ha ha ha  
AG: But, no. I'm not going to procure you up a booty call, you can do that on your own time.  
TG: what am i even paying you for  
AG: You're paying me to manage you, not manage your libido.   
TG: goddammit woman  
TG: i am a hot blooded young man with needs  
TG: desires  
TG: i require the opportunity to express my wanton affections for a hot piece of ass that has the looks of stepping right off a runway complete with the fine dusting of cocaine around the nostrils  
TG: what do i have to do to get that  
AG: Find a runway and wave a wad of cash around? Money talks. Usually better than you do.  
TG: ouch  
TG: im wounded  
AG: Not as wounded as you'll be if you keep asking me to play pimp for you.  
TG: touche

On the edge of your attention you register the door opening and when you glance up Bro's already got all the blinds pulled back and fastened to the side. (You, on the other hand, keep yours drawn to the point that you'd forgotten they even had tie backs.) A moment later a blast of warm air hits you full force in the face and you take that to be the signal that this shindig is moving out to the terrace. Not that you have any reason for following _not quite_ hot on his heels, lagging ten feet behind him while he gets up against the railing and takes in the city skyline from your penthouse vantage point. You just want to stay close by in case he tries to fuck with anything. Yeah.

AG: Anyway, now that we have my duties as your manager clarified I'm going to leave you to your search for the perfect hooker with a heart of gold.  
TG: thanks serket  
TG: really appreciate it  
TG: youve been a huge help  
TG: really just  
TG: massive  
TG: massive help  
TG: massive bitch  
TG: same thing  
AG: Are you done?  
TG: not yet  
TG: youre a soul sucking twat  
TG: and i hate you  
TG: and i hate the fact youre going to make me go to multiple engagements this week because fuck that noise i dont want to go anywhere  
TG: i especially dont want to go out of state because i hate traveling  
TG: and now im upset that plans i undoubtedly agreed to a month ago are now wanting me to fulfil my obligation to them  
TG: like how dare time not freeze so i dont have to actually do anything i said i was going to do  
TG: rude  
AG: Are you done now?  
TG: yeah im done  
TG: hows the weather in ny  
AG: It's spring, expect ninety degrees and snow.  
TG: got it  
TG: k ill catch you later  
AG: Glad we had this talk. Don't stick your dick in anything that'll give you herpes.

\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

You're leaving Wednesday night. That gives you two days to get used to Bro before you've got to leave him alone in your home for half a week.

Wow, that's no pressure at all, is it?

"Nice view, isn't it?" you ask after you pocket your phone, planting your elbows on the stomach-high railing that stands between you and falling to your untimely demise to the streets below.

"I guess," Bro says as he stares at the horizon and the city below like he's making mental stock of his geographical location. You wonder if he has a built in GPS in that electronic head of his. Honestly, you wonder a lot of things that you should probably ask about but won't because you don't want to acknowledge that he's a machine any more than you have to.

 _I guess_ is so nondescript, though. To say you crave elaboration is putting it mildly so you wait and don't say anything for a minute, for two minutes, try to let the pregnant pause give birth to a continuing sentence.

It doesn't.

"You guess?"

"Yeh. I guess."

He's fucking infuriating, but he's staring down at the city and you can imagine he's transfixed on the view. This thought itches in the back of your head that maybe he's never been this high before and if he digs it, that's pretty cool. You just wish he'd give you _something_ to go off of.

_Anything._

When it's pretty clear he's not interested in idle chitchat you tell him you're going back inside and get all of a grunt from him as acknowledgement. Right before you step back in through the glass doors you give him (his ass) one more look and can't fathom why such a pristine piece of equipment was in a goddamn _pawn shop_ of all places.

There's a puzzle here and you can't tell if it's one of those weird ones that's made with all center pieces or if you're missing all four corners and every edge in the box.

  
****************************************  
  


\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] \--  
  
TT: You do realize that when you open a window in Pesterchum it also opens it on my end as well, yes?  
TT: Which means that when you delay the beginning of the conversation and sit there in silence for several minutes, struggling desperately to put into word whatever convoluted thoughts plague your being, I am aware of exactly how long you spend in your fruitless attempts to type and send a complete sentence.  
TT: While that in and of itself isn't anything particularly noteworthy, Dave Strider does not have trouble with words. Ergo, something is troubling you and you're going to either proceed with a confession or ask me for advice, which I am happy to supply so long as you remember my advice comes to you only as a friend and not as a professional.  
TG: i bought a robot  
TT: We have a confession, and speaking of confessions I admit that is not what I expected to hear. I think this is an excellent first step in moving towards facing your admitted phobia of technology. Needless to say, I am proud of you and your progress.  
TG: rose i bought a fucking robot  
TT: Yes, Dave. You did just say that.  
TG: rose i bought a  
TG: i bought a synth  
TG: an android  
TG: a fucking robot i bought a robot with a full ai and chassis and everything  
TG: im freaking out  
TT: Exposure therapy is a great step but you don't have to go at it all at once. You can just leave it in the box until you're ready to interact with it.  
TG: there is no box  
TT: What do you mean, there is no box?  
TG: i bought him at a pawn shop  
TG: there is no box no bag no packaging  
TG: nothing  
TG: just me and him  
TG: yup were sure sitting here watching shitty tv together  
TG: and hes not talking to me  
TG: which while i normally appreciate that hes so fucking quiet its freaking me out  
TT: ...what kind of robot did you buy, Dave?  
TT: Sitting together in silence while watching television sounds more like a poorly planned Tinder hookup than interacting with a synthetic lifeform.  
TG: hold up  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] sent tentacleTherapist [TT] the file "IMG_2475.jpg" --  
TT: What the fuck.  
TG: i know right  
TT: Dave, are you absolutely sure you're sitting with a synthetic lifeform and not a living, breathing person?  
TT: Because at a glance I would be hard pressed to consider the individual you just showed me anything close to robotic.  
TT: Perhaps I would describe him as sedated, but not robotic.  
TG: oh no hold on  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] sent tentacleTherapist [TT] the file "IMG_2476.jpg" --  
TG: had to get him to take off the shades  
TT: Holy shit.  
TT: You bought him at a pawn shop?  
TG: yeah  
TG: he was just sitting at one some little place full of comic books and minitabs in West Hollywood  
TG: its not a new place i remember seeing it before its run down and they just restriped the parking lot and didnt sweep up all the dirt and i remember this shit  
TG: i remember it like it was yesterday  
TG: i mean it was earlier today but i remember it like it was yesterday  
TG: he was just sitting in the back organizing yugioh cards  
TG: do you remember that shit from when we were kids  
TG: because i barely do and i remember everything  
TT: If I weren't absolutely intrigued by your tale of synthetic lifeform acquisition I would make a prompt call of bullshit on that claim, but continue.  
TG: anyway yeah i spent a fucking fortune on him and bought him the shades so nobody would be able to tell hes fake  
TG: i cant even tell hes fake  
TT: Fake, while accurate, isn't a polite descriptor nor one that synthetics (in my experience) appreciate. Hence why they refer to themselves as synthetic.  
TG: listen i paid so much money for him that ill call him a little girl if i fucking want to  
TG: vriska actually messaged me to be like what the fuck is this check getting cashed for  
TG: like it pinged her radar and shes used to me dropping mad cash on the most ridic shit  
TG: that usually isnt robots  
TG: point is i have spent so much money that i am like unto a god and i demand the respect and adoration of one  
TT: Yes, I do believe the first of your esteemed hierophants will be most content to give in to your grandiose designs.  
TG: youre making fun of me  
TT: I would never.  
TG: i can fucking hear that little smile you get when you tease me  
TG: this is offensive rose  
TG: im offended  
TG: how dare  
TT: I admit it, I am a horrendous friend and a wretched wench of a woman who speaks only in riddles and coy turns of phrase aimed purely to cause you undue vexation.  
TG: finally  
TG: some truth  
TT: Does your synth have a name?  
TG: dont change the subject  
TT: The subject is officially changed.  
TG: he introduced himself as bro  
TG: i dont know if thats a code name or short for something or what  
TG: maybe its not bro  
TG: maybe its like  
TG: B-|20  
TT: It's most likely he has a model designation and Bro is his chosen name  
TG: why would a synth need multiple names  
TG: maybe i want to list off the specific model of my electronics and not just the brand  
TG: maybe i want someone to be like yes i have a samsung nebula six version three  
TG: and im like goddamn i have a nüibm slate three with the maximum upgrade package  
TG: and this is my robot the brobot mark twelve with service pack sixteen  
TT: In short, you're horrendously curious and not knowing is driving you to madness but you either are unsure or unwilling to communicate with him enough to ask.  
TT: That, or you have fallen into the trap of being a new user with a complex piece of technology and are struggling under the weight of your tech savvy hubris.  
TT: Dave, did you RTFM?  
TG: what the fuck does that mean  
TT: Read the fucking manual.  
TG: i will eventually  
TG: not on day one  
TG: were still at ground zero here  
TG: we need decompression time  
TT: Speaking on decompression, it's past midnight here and I do have a requisite amount of sleep I need before my alarm goes off.  
TG: how much sleep  
TT: Enough. Enjoy your new synth.  
TG: rose dont leave me  
TT: I've already left you once in this lifetime. I have no qualms about doing it again.  
TG: ouch  
TG: fucking burn  
TG: im getting bro to take me to the hospital for a skin graft after that one  
TG: holy shit  
TT: Good night, Dave.  
TG: night

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

Well, you don't feel any better.

"Not even a day in and you're showin' me off." Bro breaks you out of your post-Rose reverie (which is more like your head spinning in vague circles even at the most pleasant of conversations) and it takes every ounce of effort to not snap your head up with the sudden attentiveness of a poor student who just got called out by the teacher.

Who are you kidding, that's _exactly_ what you do.

"Whuh?"

"Ain't been twenty four hours" he says it like _twennyfur_ "and you're takin' pictures of me to show off." You can't tell if he's pleased or annoyed with it because, once more for the people in the back, _there's no goddamn inflection_.

"I wasn't _showing you off_ like you so seem to high and mightily think I was," you shoot back.

"Then who were you sendin' those to?"

"A friend of mine."

"This friend a'yours go by th'name of Dreambubble?"

"Okay, listen. First of all, uncalled for, assuming I just post pictures of everything to Dreambubble like some fucking plebeian bitch that's attached to social media like a bizarre human centipede where I consume updates and shit them right back out with terrifying rapidity before dying of internet septicemia." There was a point in all this but you're pretty sure you've already lost it. "Two, I do actually have friends and people I communicate with in amicable one-on-one conversations multiple times a week. Read, not social media. _Three,_ "

No, yeah, you've definitely lost the point.

Bro, to his credit, is just staring at you in a manner that you're not sure is _Whenever your dramatic ass is done I'd like to go back to the TV_ or rapt attention, but you're drastically leaning towards the former there. The fact that he _is_ paying attention to you is throwing you off. People don't _pay attention_ , they just sort of give you vague acknowledgement in the adult equivalent of patting a child on the head and saying _that's nice_. It should be refreshing but it just puts you on edge. (Do you notice a pattern about things putting you on edge with regard to your freshly acquired companion?)

"Three." Let's be real, here; point or no, you've never known when to shut up. "I was just telling _one_ person who I trust as a confidant about how goddamn _real_ you look so calm your particularly muscular tits."

For a brief, brief moment you imagine his eyebrows twitch down into a vague furrow that you want to read as confusion or displeasure but it's gone so quick you can't be sure you saw anything at all.

"Fooled you, didn' I," he says and turns his head back towards the TV just as the show comes back off commercial. That leaves you really considering that because he did fool you, didn't he. Would you have given him enough time of day to even ask his name if not for the fact that he looks so goddamn real that you were convinced he was a particularly attractive if albeit nerdy Texan? No, hell no, of course you wouldn't have. You wouldn't have paused for five fucking seconds to even glance in his direction if he'd looked like a normal synth, or even a really good synth that still had the joint seams visible.

For a moment you wonder how many other people he fooled, and then your brain jumps to how many other people didn't give him the time of day _because_ he doesn't look like a robot. Nobody walks into the electronics room of a pawn shop looking to talk to a human. He had a hell of a pricetag, who could afford that? Is he even aftermarket cost or did you pay full price for him. What even is factory cost of a synthetic lifeform who looks and sounds this real?

The commercials are rolling before you remember to shoot off a comeback and you wind up sitting there silent in front of the TV until, far more tired and no closer to any answers, you finally excuse yourself to bed.


End file.
